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WASHINGTON, DC, April 22, 2013 – The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has joined the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), the global open data initiative that unites over 130 organisations working on international development, ranging from some of the biggest government donors in the world to regional NGOs, to foundations and trusts.
The move by the GEF is only the latest in a long series of steps to increase transparency in its operations and signals the GEF’s endorsement of the principles of IATI to report funding data in accordance with the IATI common standard. Transparency and accountability are crucial for successful development. Momentum continues to grow in this direction, with more countries signalling their intention to join.
IATI is about empowering people on the ground to make better decisions, and that means increasing access to better information at the country level. It also helps donors do their jobs better – informing decisions, working more collaboratively across partnerships, and being more accountable to taxpayers. Today, IATI published its first annual report, providing an opportunity to register progress to date.
Open data initiatives such as IATI provide huge potential to empower communities and peoples, improve accountability, and conserve resources. This initiative has come a long way since its creation, moving from political commitment to action. IATI started with a message of encouraging institutions to publish what they can. Today, institutions are publishing more and better data through IATI than was previously being made available publicly.
IATI’s History
IATI was launched at the third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra in 2008 and was specifically designed to support donors in meeting their Accra commitments on transparency as set out in the Accra Agenda for Action as follows:
- Donors will publicly disclose regular, detailed and timely information on volume, allocation and, when available, results of development expenditure to enable more accurate budget, accounting and audit by developing countries.
- Donors and developing countries will regularly make public all conditions linked to disbursements.
- Donors will provide full and timely information on annual commitments and actual disbursements so that developing countries are in a position to accurately record all aid flows in their budget estimates and their accounting systems.
- Donors will provide developing countries with regular and timely information on their rolling three- to five-year forward expenditure and/or implementation plans, with at least indicative resource allocations resource allocations where possible so that developing countries can integrate them into their medium term planning and macroeconomic frameworks. Donors will address any constraints to providing such information.
Between the Accra and Busan High Level Forums, IATI contributed to the ongoing work of the OECD Development Assistance Committee’s Working Party on Aid Effectiveness on Transparent and Responsible Aid. In the run up to the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, IATI contributed to the Building Block on Transparency. The Busan outcome document, the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, was released on 1st December 2011 and includes a specific reference to IATI, committing all those who endorsed it to:
“Implement a common, open standard for electronic publication of timely, comprehensive and forward looking information on resources provided through development cooperation, taking into account the statistical reporting of the OECD DAC and the complementary efforts of the International Aid Transparency Initiative and others. This standard must meet the needs of developing countries and non-state actors, consistent with national requirements. We will agree on this standard, and publish our respective schedules to implement it by December 2012, with the aim of implementing it full by December 2015”.
More information is available at media@aidtransparency.net or visit www.aidtransparency.net or #IATI on Twitter