Scheduled to open its doors this fall, the new U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has some ambitious—and welcomed—goals. Created by the BUILD Act, the DFC is set to put “development” at the center of its work. The transition team for this new institution, the core of which combines the functions of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and Development Credit Authority (DCA) (now part of the U.S. Agency...

Three years ago, 59 major humanitarian aid donors and implementers brokered the ‘Grand Bargain’ at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016. It had the ambitious goal of achieving $1 billion in savings to address the gap in humanitarian financing. This was to be achieved through a series of commitments in ten key areas. One of which was improved transparency of humanitarian spending.

Significant gains have been made since...

Our Aid Transparency Index seeks to assess the timeliness, comprehensiveness, and comparability of data from some of the world’s biggest aid donors. We will kick off data collection for the 2020 Index this December. Our recent blog sets out more details of the Index timetable.

If you are one of the publishers included in the Index, we will provide you with initial scores at the start of the data collection period. This...

President Trump will soon send Congress his budget for FY 2020, including his proposed spending levels for US foreign assistance.  In his first two budgets, President Trump proposed drastic cuts – over 30% – to US aid on global health, education, agriculture, democracy, and other global development programs.  Congress has roundly rejected these budgets, keeping US foreign assistance at essentially the same levels.

With...

In a rare example of agreement from Capitol Hill to the White House to the development community, the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act (BUILD Act), P.L. 115-254, was signed into law on October 5, 2018. This legislation creates the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The new agency not only combines the functions of some existing agencies, including the Overseas Private Inve...

In the aid transparency arena, one of the most frequently raised issues concerns data use. Why has there not been more uptake of data from the myriad of potential users? What is available and what isn’t? What are the barriers to use? With that in mind, we decided -- through the lens of a user -- to leverage our knowledge and experience to try to answer these questions using US International Aid Transparency Initiative (IAT...

For the last several years, US foreign assistance data has been published on two official US government websites: ForeignAssistance.gov and Foreign Aid Explorer. To the uninitiated, the two platforms seem to offer essentially the same data—what and where the US spends on foreign assistance, with some additional information on the how and the results.
 

Putting information about US foreign assistance all in one place is...

This post was written by Sally Paxton, the US Representative for Publish What You Fund, and George Ingram, Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and Board Chair of Friends of Publish What You Fund. It was originally published on the Brookings Institution’s website.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have set ambitious targets to eradicate poverty and advance development by 2030. Paying for these ambitions is stee...