The IATI Governing Board is pleased to announce that IATI will be funding the next Aid Transparency Index, which will be released in 2024. The Index measures aid transparency among the world’s major development agencies and has been produced by Publish What You Fund (PWYF) since 2012.
The Index uses IATI data to help track and measure donor agencies’ progress towards improving their transparency, identifying and encouraging improvements.
The most recent Aid Transparency Index, released in July 2022, assessed 50 agencies which represented 84% of all IATI data. The provision of funding by IATI will ensure that PWYF can continue to measure donor transparency against the Index in the next two years.
Publish What You Fund (PWYF) has been an active member of IATI, since the initiative was founded in 2008. PWYF has delivered many projects that promote the value of publishing IATI data and their advocacy work has been an important driver in the adoption of the IATI Standard.
PWYF has delivered many projects that promote the value of publishing IATI data and their advocacy work has been an important driver in the adoption of the IATI Standard.
More recently PWYF has provided many use cases in using IATI data to inform accountability and decisions on development resources. For example, they have used IATI data to measure the transparency of Development Finance Institutions, track funding for Women’s Economic Empowerment and understand progress made on the localisation of development funding.
As part of the new funding arrangement, PWYF has agreed to deliver research into the feasibility and value of applying the Aid Transparency Index’s automated tests to a larger set of organisations. PWYF currently assesses the world’s largest donors, with 50 included in the 2022 Aid Transparency Index. To date over 1500 development and humanitarian organisations have published their spending to IATI and the Governing Board is keen to understand the potential benefits of assessing more organisations. PWYF is well placed to undertake this important research and help inform future decisions on assessing many more IATI publishers against the Index.
The Governing Board is committed to ensuring the independence and integrity of the Aid Transparency Index. IATI stakeholders (including the Board, membership or IATI publishers) will not be involved in the Index’s implementation. As with previous years, PWYF will independently manage the preparation of the 2024 Index, including choosing the agencies to be measured, engaging them, and collecting and analysing their data.
The Governing Board reiterates that the funding arrangement with PWYF is on a one-off basis, with funding allocated for the Aid Transparency Index 2024 only. No other projects or aspects of PWYF’s work will be funded by IATI, and IATI will not be involved in any decision-making or governance processes of Publish What You Fund.
Publish What You Fund has begun the process to refine the methodology for the 2024 Aid Transparency Index, launching a public consultation in February. As part of the funding agreement, PWYF has agreed to deliver a consultation on the methodology with IATI’s community. They will share updates on the platform IATI Connect, which includes posting information on all previous Index methodology reviews.
The Governing Board looks forward to welcoming PWYF at IATI’s upcoming Members’ Assembly and Community Exchange in Copenhagen next week. For information about the Aid Transparency Index, visit PWYF’s website: publishwhatyoufund.org/the-index/.