International Aid Transparency (UK0055)

Increasing the transparency and traceability of development spending has the potential to transform the way aid is delivered globally and to improve its impact. Making information about aid spending easier to access, understand and use means that taxpayers in donor countries and citizens in developing countries can more easily hold governments to account for using funds wisely. It also enables international development actors to coordinate and plan their activities more effectively. As the UK achieves the milestone of providing 0.7% of Gross National Income on development assistance from 2013, this greater transparency and openness is a crucial element of helping to ensure we get best value for every pound spent.
Achievement of this commitment will result in more UK data on development assistance being published and available in a common format to an internationally recognised standard. We will also encourage other providers of development assistance to make their information available in this common format, helping to create a richer global dataset of more open, timely, comprehensive, comparable and reusable information.
Timescales: The Cabinet Office and DFID will work together to ensure that UK government departments that spend ODA publish information in line with IATI by 2015. In addition, DFID will:
-implement the Busan Common Standard on Aid Transparency, including both the Creditor
Reporting System of the OECD Development Assistance Committee and IATI by 2015; this
means making data available according to the internationally recognised standard in a
format that is open, comprehensive, comparable and re-usable
-improve the accessibility of development assistance information by launching the UK ‘Development Tracker’ by the end of 2013 – this will increase the level of detail of information available on DFID projects and expenditure, readable by use of a browser as well as providing data in open data files; we will also publish summary information in major local languages in a way that is accessible to citizens in the countries in which we work
-work with international donors and partner countries to better link development assistance data with partner countries’ budget data, through the development of the IATI budget identifier, by June 2014; this will make it easier to understand and trace how development assistance is being spent in partner countries
-introduce approaches to improving the traceability of UK development assistance through a range of delivery chains by August 2014; this includes pilots with a number of private sector suppliers and CSOs by March 2014 and a requirement of IATI publication by the end of 2015 for all implementing partners
-continue to drive up standards in the quality of information we publish through incremental system changes, including maximising the potential of new technological developments and strengthening feedback mechanisms