We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are off to a great
start of the New Year! While we were all reveling a few things happened:
Transparency News
The Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act passed
unanimously through the US House, but then got stuck in the Senate. MFAN sent
the Senate a statement
urging for the act to be passed during the new 113th Congress.
Nigeria announced
that it has recovered $443 million of the $2.6 billion owed to the government
as revenue by oil and gas companies, thanks to the Nigeria Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative. ONE
applauded the step, and encouraged the revenue to be used to support some
of the country’s largest needs, like 20 new healthcare facilities perhaps?
David Hall-Matthews of Publish What You Fund listed three
hopes for the future of transparency in 2013. To sum up: more IATI
reporting, better quality of information, and more tools for accessibility.
In line with these hopes is a call from Camille Karamaga on
the Public Financial Management Blog for governments to simplify
budget documents they are making public in order for them to be more easily
accessed and used by all key stakeholders, including the average citizen.
Aid Effectiveness Highlights
As the anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti is drawing
close, Deborah Sontag published to the New York Times a highly detailed account
of the slow rebuilding process that the country has struggled with over the
past three years since the quake wreaked havoc. An accompanied infographic
shows where the $9.5 billion in relief and recovery aid has been channeled,
highlighting the $1.5 billion that has not yet been disbursed.
Weekly updates are written by Taryn
Davis of Development Gateway; email her your
tips for next week's update to get a shout-out in the post.
1 comment:
There are high expectations this year 2013. A huge challenge to implement effectiveness and transparency.
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