Aid Transparency - Index 2022 findings and future direction

Join us for a conversation on the key highlights and insights from the 2022 Aid Transparency Index with Gary Forster, CEO and Alex Tilley, Head of Research at Publish What You Fund, and Jonathan Glennie, Co-Founder of the Global Nation will share his thoughts on the relevance of transparency as a measure of effective outcomes and highlight some potential alternative approaches.  

The Index measures the transparency of the spending and activities of 50 major development organisations, including donor governments, multilateral organisations and development finance institutions. The Publish What You Fund’s results from the 2022 Aid Transparency Index provide some interesting insights into the post pandemic changes. The Index acts as an independent monitoring tool of the world’s major aid organisations, with the aim of contributing to and promoting transparency and accessibility of aid and development information.

There have been seven full indexes run by Publish What You Fund, with aggregate data (collected since 2012 on different aid organisations) showing a strong and steady increase in there being higher quality and comprehensive aid information produced by these organisations.

Aid transparency plays an important role as we face the current global challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, rising oil and fuel prices, and the climate crisis. As the pressure mounts on aid spending against a backdrop of rising inflation and global debt, it is becoming increasingly important to ensure that aid flows are monitored for their quality and effectiveness. However, some question whether the investment into aid transparency itself is providing any real value and impact. Either way, development actors need to be able to demonstrate that they are delivering positive outcomes. Our speakers will discuss both the current data and future potential models, leading to an interesting discussion and Q&A with our audience.

Agenda (virtual):

• Introduction & welcome (5 mins)
• Gary Forster and Alex Tilley on 2022 ATI Overview & highlights (with perhaps scores for UK departments) (12 mins)
• Jonathan Glennie on his thoughts on the relevance of transparency as a measure of effective outcomes and highlight some potential alternative approaches (5-7 mins)
• Discussion and Q&A on transparency challenges & improvement opportunities with Gary, Jonathan, and Alex (30mins)
• Closing remarks & end (5 mins)
• Close