Welcome to the latest roundup of news from the world of aid and development transparency.

If we want private capital to fill the SDG finance gap, development banks must disclose more mobilisation data

Development banks play a critical role in mobilising private capital to meet global development goals – but they are not currently releasing details of what investments they’re making and how they’re attracting private investors. We’ve just launched a new report which calls for detailed, disaggregated disclosure of private capital mobilisation data so that stakeholders can understand what works, and what doesn’t. The current information gap is preventing donors from judging where and how their scarce funds can be most productively deployed, shareholders from performing their oversight function, private investors from being aware and informed about investment opportunities, and citizens from holding the banks to account.

Following extensive engagement and research into private capital mobilisation, Publish What You Fund has developed a well-evidenced set of recommendations on what needs to be measured and disclosed to be most useful to public and private stakeholders. We have defined a consistent methodology for measuring mobilisation that accurately captures the broad range of activities across timelines and aligns with incentives to prioritise the most promising kinds of investments. And our proposal for detailed, disaggregated disclosure is achievable, in line with market standards, and reflects the type of information readily available on third party sites.

Download What Works (full report)

Download What Works (executive summary)

The report, and the themes it covers, are featured in this Financial Times article.

Sally Paxton and Gary Forster have written more on the context for this work and why action is urgently needed to transform our understanding of what works in private capital mobilisation.

What we don’t know can hurt us: Better measurement and disclosure of MDB private finance mobilisation data

Wednesday 23 October 2024, 2:00-3:30 PM EST / 7:00-8:30 PM BST

Washington DC and online

We’re pleased to invite you to this event next week, co-hosted with the Center for Global Development (CGD), when we’ll be presenting our recommendations on how to strengthen mobilisation measurement and reporting. A panel will explore the key measurement and disclosure challenges that need to be resolved in order to make and track more progress on multilateral development bank (MDB) mobilisation. We are delighted to be joined by:

• Nick Anstett, Managing Director, Pollination
• Chris Eleftheriades, Executive Director, Lion’s Head Global Partners
• Margaret Kuhlow, Deputy Assistant Secretary, International Development Finance and Policy, US Department of the Treasury
• Haje Schütte, Deputy Director, Development Co-operation Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
• Phil Stevens, Head of International Financial Institutions, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
• Gary Forster, CEO, Publish What You Fund (Presenter)
• Nancy Lee, Director, Sustainable Development Finance, CGD (Moderator)

Register here

Other news

Here’s a quick roundup of some of the news and reports we’ve been reading over the last few weeks:

Development Initiatives released a new report providing an overview of the latest data on global humanitarian assistance, and analysis of the latest trends in funding to local and national actors, the use of humanitarian cash and voucher assistance and anticipatory action budgets. It finds the humanitarian funding gap was the highest on record in 2023. Key findings include:

• While humanitarian needs are historically high, total international humanitarian assistance decreased by 1.1% in 2023.
• The donor base continued to narrow. The top 3 donors contributed 63% of public funding in 2023 (up from 61% in 2022), while the top 10 donors provided 85% of public funding (up from 83% in 2022).
• Despite longstanding commitments to increase funding to local and national actors (LNAs) there has been little visible change across the sector. According to independently verifiable data, Grand Bargain signatories provided only 4.4% of their funding to LNAs in 2023. However, according to self-reported data from Grand Bargain intermediaries, which cannot be verified independently, this figure rises to 25%, highlighting the urgent need for improved public reporting.

CGD has analysed the US$29 billion of ODA spent by OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries  on hosting refugees and asylum seekers within their own borders in 2023. The analysis shows that the cost each country reports per person arriving differs wildly, with the UK as an outlier. While seven countries report under US$1,000 per head, and most (23 of 31) report under US$10,000, the UK reports the highest costs per refugee of any country, at nearly US$26,000. This is over 30 percent higher than the next highest country, Ireland. The US reports costs of US$7,500 per head.

The ONE Campaign has launched the Trillions Tracker to measure and visualise progress against the US$2.5 trillion annual public spending gap. It shows US$700 billion of new spending and commitments to 2030, but highlights that a US$1.75 trillion annual spending gap remains. The ONE Campaign proposes some of the actions needed to close the gap.

The Human Rights Funders Network has released new analysis of grants data from 2020, which shows US$4.9 billion in human rights funding—a 21% increase from the previous year. The report also underscores ongoing challenges however, such as global funding disparities and limited support for intersectional work.

The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMS) consortium has released more country-by-country information on loan default and recovery rates. But as this Eye on Global Transparency article reports, the information has been criticised by some public and private sector stakeholders, who argue that more detailed, granular data is needed to boost lending to emerging markets and developing economies.

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