The UKaid Transparency Guarantee

03 June 2010

The UK Government is introducing a new ‘Aid Transparency Guarantee’, which will make our aid fully transparent to citizens in both the UK and recipient countries.

Aid transparency is critical to improving the effectiveness and value for money of aid. Making information about aid spending easier to access, use and understand  means that UK taxpayers and citizens in poor countries can more easily hold DFID and recipient governments to account for using aid money wisely. Transparency creates better feedback from beneficiaries to donors and taxpayers, and helps us better understand what works and what doesn’t. It also helps reduce waste and the opportunities for fraud and corruption.

The UKaid Transparency Guarantee

The UK Government Aid Transparency Guarantee states that:

• We will publish detailed information about all new DFID projects and programmes on our website, in a common standard with other donors.
• Information published will be comprehensive, accessible, comparable, accurate and timely.
• Information will be published in English and with summary information in major local languages, in a way that is accessible to citizens in the countries in which we work.
• We will allow anyone to reuse our information, including to create new applications which make it easier to see where aid is being spent.
• We will provide opportunities for those directly affected by our projects to provide feedback on the performance of projects.

We will also push for full transparency across the international aid system by

• Requiring, over time, any civil society organisation that is in direct receipt of DFID funds to adhere to similar standards of transparency and accountability, and pushing multilateral organisations to do the same. This means that UK taxpayers will be able to better see where their money is being spent.
• Pressing other donors - bilateral, multilateral and non-traditional - to adhere to similar standards of transparency as set out in the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) This will make it much easier for people to see all the aid from all donors, and get a full picture of the aid being spent in each country. 
• Using our influence to encourage developing countries which receive UK aid to become more transparent to their own citizens about their budgets and the aid they receive.