ANALYSIS

The Department of State is working with USAID on the overall coordination of U.S. aid transparency implementation, particularly through the hosting of the Foreign Assistance Dashboard and all formal engagement with IATI. State itself has not published any new information to the Dashboard since its creation in December 2010. To date, the Department’s only information in the IATI format is a disaggregated budget, currently shared with USAID in a joint IATI organisation file. Although State revised its Open Government Plan in April 2012, it does not refer to IATI, nor does it provide details for how the Department itself will implement its commitments to the Dashboard, except to list it as a “flagship initiative” for 2012–13.

The Department of State scores 22.1%, placing it near the bottom of the poor category, above only Austria. It is the only U.S. agency that does not systematically publish project IDs or classifications such as aid type, collaboration type and finance type. Information for eight indicators at the activity level could be found for some projects on its website, but it is not systematically published. State performs better at the organisation level, particularly on organisation financial information.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• The Department of State should begin publication in line with the IATI standard as soon as possible. The information published should include current, comprehensive organisation and activity-level data.
• The Department should designate an office to produce a strategy to improve its internal information management and meet its existing aid transparency commitments, including IATI. It should incorporate that strategy into the next revision of its Open Government Plan, due in April 2014.

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