Owen Barder on Aid Transparency

Last updated on February 25, 2011

Aid transparency is a topic I know all too little about. Thanfully, Owen Barder — whom I had the pleasure of meeting at a tweetup in Washington, DC last month — has just written a post discussing the eight lessons he has learned from working on aid transparency over the past three years.These eight lessons are:

1. To make a difference, transparency has to be citizen-centred not donor-centred.
2. Today’s ways of publishing information serve the needs of the powerful, not citizens.
3. People in developing countries want transparency of execution not just allocation.
4. Show, don’t tell.
5. Transparency of aid execution will drive out waste, bureaucracy and corruption.
6. Social accountability could be Development 3.0.
7. The burden of proof should be on those who advocate secrecy.
8. Give citizens of developing countries the benefit of the doubt.

I have purposely omitted Owen’s explanation below each point so that readers click on the link above and read the whole thing.