As other First Tranche contributors have noted, Publish What You Fund’s 2011 pilot Aid Transparency Index represents a major step forward in the benchmarking of donor transparency practices. But what is it exactly that PWYF has accomplished with this latest index?
I would argue that one of most important
contributions PWYF has made is to move the policy discussion beyond the simple
question of “What information is available?” and towards the more fundamental
question: “Is the information that should
be available actually available?”
PWYF sheds light on the latter issue with detailed data for 58 organizations
from 45 countries/IGOs. Their assessment examines three dimensions of each donor
organization: organizational, country and activity level. At each level, PWYF
has determined whether the organization collects and/or publishes commonly
available information items, such as policy documents, country strategies, and details on project
planning, implementation and evaluation. The complete methodology is available
here.
PWYF's pilot Index also draws our attention to an
area where there is tremendous scope for improvement: benchmarking the
transparency practices of development finance agencies outside of the OECD-DAC.
PWYF and their CSO/university collaborators gathered data largely from DAC
agencies, but their methodological approach lends itself to inclusion of
non-DAC agencies. In fact, some of the initial groundwork has already been laid
by Michael Hubbard and Pranay Sinha at University of Birmingham. In their “Non DAC Donor’s Data Availability Index,” Hubbard and Sinha investigate the depth and quality of non-DAC data already
available from the AidData.org web portal. They also provide information about
the sources of the records published by AidData.
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Hubbard
and Sinha, “Non DAC Donor’s Data Availability Index”
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Given that primary sources of information have been
identified and a strong methodology for measurement is in place, the table is
set for an industrious graduate student, junior faculty member, or CSO to begin
collecting non-DAC data that are comparable with the (mostly) DAC data included
in the PWYF assessment.
My colleagues and I believe that including non-DAC development
finance agencies in future benchmarking exercises would be a great service to
the aid transparency policy discussion, as many of these countries (e.g. India, Mexico,
and Russia)
are currently establishing new agencies and working out how information will be
gathered and published for years to come. Including these organizations in benchmarking
assessments like PWYF’s 2011 Index would enable non-DAC agency leaders to track
their own progress. It might also foster a bit of healthy competition.
Robert
Mosolgo is an AidData Project Manager at the College of William and Mary. He
oversees AidData's work with non-DAC development finance agencies.
