Catch up on the launch of the 2025 DFI Transparency Index – our latest assessment of how the world’s leading development finance institutions are performing on transparency – in partnership with ODI Global. Watch now to hear from DFIs, civil society and private sector representatives and explore how we can improve financial and impact transparency in climate and development finance.
The 2025 DFI Transparency Index reveals broad-based improvements in transparency among development finance institutions (DFIs) over the last two years, but also highlights significant shortcomings, particularly in relation to impact, private capital mobilisation and climate finance.
Samantha Attridge and Gary Forster discuss the critical role of transparency in achieving development and climate finance goals, and preview this year’s DFI Transparency Index, highlighting where we’re looking for breakthroughs, and where stumbling blocks may remain.
The forthcoming 2025 DFI Transparency Index includes most of the world’s leading bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions (DFIs). However, a group of seven bilateral DFIs with trillions of dollars in assets are not included. Why? The top line answer is that their levels of transparency are so low that no meaningful assessment is possible. This blog explores some of those unassessed DFIs, where their disclosure practices fall short, and the real world consequences of this lack of transparency.
As more public finance is channelled to the private sector in the name of development, we need to know: are these investments genuinely adding value, or are they just substituting what the market could do on its own? This is where additionality comes in: the idea that ODA should only be used when it delivers something that private capital cannot.
Our latest research explores how well donors and their bilateral DFIs are disclosing the additionality of their private sector instrument (PSI) investments using the new OECD-DAC reporting requirements.
As traditional aid shrinks, non-ODA financial flows are increasingly crucial. Their transparency, however, lags far behind. In this blog, Tessie San Martin, George Ingram and Sally Paxton assert that better visibility into non-ODA flows will unlock smarter investments and stronger outcomes. Therefore, extending transparency is essential to ensure new development funding achieves real impact
