ONE’s new Transparency and Accountability Policy Team has a full agenda, spearheading the organisation’s efforts to push for more open, transparent and accountable governance in order to accelerate progress on poverty reduction. Ultimately, our aim is to drive progress towards open development, a world in which people in developing countries have the information and resources that they need to hold their governments accountable and to make well-informed decisions to improve their lives.

As a stepping stone towards that, we are pushing for more transparent and accountable financing for development, so that resources (including but not limited to aid) are spent effectively to deliver improved results in health, agriculture, infrastructure and other issues that are key to the fight against poverty and towards prosperity. Transparency can turbo-charge accountability, encouraging innovation, incentivizing behavior change, transforming political dynamics, and helping to ensure that resources are invested wisely to tackle poverty.

To do this, we’re working on a number of fronts, pushing for natural resource revenue transparency, budget transparency, and aid transparency and encouraging donors to invest more in building the capacity of civil society organisations and other oversight institutions such as parliaments so that they can make use of the information that transparency will unleash, in order to hold governments to account.

• On natural resource revenues, we’re working with partners such as the Revenue Watch Institute, the Publish What You Pay Coalition and Global Witness, supporting the battle to make sure that Cardin-Lugar legislation is implemented in the US and that EU legislation makes it onto the books.
• On budget transparency, we’re working with partners including the International Budget Partnership, engaging with the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency as it seeks to develop and implement global norms on budget transparency and adding our energy to the Global Movement on Budget Transparency, Accountability and Participation.
• On aid transparency, we’re working with partners including Publish What You Fund and Transparency International, pushing to ensure that agreements reached at Busan are monitored and implemented and that the most is made of potential of the World Bank’s Open Aid Partnership.
• And on civil society and oversight institutions, we’re talking to the World Bank to try to make sure that a planned Global Partnership on Enhanced Social Accountability is appropriately governed and suitably ambitious.

To drive progress on these various issues, we’re focused on the G8 in the US, the G20 in Mexico, and the Open Government Partnership. We’re also exploring the potential of new technologies as transparency and accountability game-changers. And, we’re thinking about how best to tackle illicit financial flows, how to boost domestic resource mobilisation in developing countries, and whether a set of post-2015 development goals might incorporate governance, transparency and accountability issues.

1)      ONE’s Policy Pitch (contact me)

2)      UK Aid Network HLF-IV update (October) available here

3)      3^rd Draft of the Busan Outcome Document available here

4)      ONE’s comments on the 3^rd draft of the Busan Outcome Document (contact me)

5)      ONE’s comments on the Building Blocks on “transparency” and on “results and accountability” (contact me)

6)      The Gates G20 report

7)      Addis Ababa statement on development effectiveness available here

8)      Commonwealth Finance Ministers Statement available here

9)      UK Aid Network – Shaping the future of aid available here

Other useful reading

10)   Tunis consensus on development effectiveness available here

11)   Action Aid – Real Aid 3 available here

12)   David Booth – Aid effectiveness: Bringing country ownership and politics back in (exec sum in attached) available here

13)   Jonathan Glennie / Andrew Rogerson – Global reach is the prize for Busan available here

14)   CABRI Position Paper on aid transparency available here

15)   Brian Atwood – The road to Busan: Pursuing a new consensus on development cooperation available here

I completed it way back in 1996, when it was still possible to read everything that had been written on globalization!

Here it is. Enjoy?!

I’m not sure whether I’m happy or not about the fact that I’m still basically working on issues of globalization, governance and borders. At least I’m now more at the pushing for policy-change rather than “let’s conceptualise place” end of the spectrum.

Reshaping the regulatory landscape: Border skirmishes around the Bahamas and Cayman offshore financial centres,Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 5, (1998).

Placing trust, trusting place: On the social construction of offshore financial centres, Political Geography, Vol. 17 (1998).

Beyond the border: Globalization, sovereignty and extra-territoriality, Geopolitics, Vol. 3 (1998).

Offshores onshore: New regulatory spaces and real historical places in the landscape of global money, pp.139-154 in Martin, R. (ed.) (1999), Money and the space economy, Wiley.

Offshoreness, globalisation and sovereignty: Post-modern geo-political economy?, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 25 (2000), No. 3, pp.269-283, Royal Geographical Society.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) looks set to be an important forum for sharing experience, encouraging and assisting governments to become more open. Africa’s involvement is currently limited with just three African countries – Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania – joining South Africa within the OGP. However, the partnership has great relevance for Africa and for ONE: the ability of African citizens to hold their governments to account is shaped by the actions of the USA, the EU and other countries that provide aid to Africa and whose companies operate in Africa; African governments can share experience with other emerging economies as regards transparency and accountability; and, over time, we hope that many more African countries will choose to take the path towards more open, transparent and accountable government.

We know that in 2012, Brazil will continue to lead the way on the open government agenda, hosting meetings of the Open Government Partnership, the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency and the International Anti-Corruption Conference, and perhaps joining with the USA in requiring its oil companies to publish what they pay to the governments of the countries where they operate. And we trust that Mexico will pick up the baton of transparency and accountability as it takes over the leadership of the G20 from France.

For ONE’s introduction to OGP and a link to our policy pitch see here. For ONE’s full analysis of the Country Action Plans from a development perspective keep reading …

Brazil

Brazil’s Action Plan sets out a wide range of domestic commitments and reaffirms the country’s support for the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Public Officials in International Business, the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. The Action Plan also notes Brazil’s active participation in the G20 working group on corruption and other global forums working on the issue, including the World Economic Forum. On budgets Brazil pledges to open up their Resource Transfer Agreements and Contracts System which provides information on resource appropriations of the Federal Fiscal and Social Security Budgets. The Transparency Portal, of which Brazil is rightly proud, has been in operation since 2004 and now publishes all government expenditure daily. This will be revamped under their OGP commitments with enhanced usability and a full historical database.

Indonesia

Indonesia’s Action Plan addresses three sets of challenges: poor public service delivery; corruption; and a lack of transparency about the management of public resources. Building on recent progress – significant improvements in budget transparency and becoming a candidate country for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in 2010 – the Action Plan clearly sets out how the government will improve public services, including in health and education, increase public integrity, and ensure that public resources are managed more effectively. Indonesia aims to improve its score on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index from 2.8 in 2010 to 5.0 in 2014, to publish information about budget allocations and spending at the level of individual schools and hospitals, and to be fully-compliant with EITI by October 2012, in part by publishing in full information about revenues earned from the oil, gas and mining sectors.

Mexico

Mexico’s Action Plan gives strong endorsement to important international agreements including the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Public Officials in International Business, the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. This is in line with ONE’s asks in previous G20 policy pitches. On natural resources, Mexico identifies fossil fuels as a key sector for transparency, but at this stage focuses on publishing domestic geological and geophysical information. On budget transparency the Action Plan commits Mexico to improving public finance examination procedures in order to implement accounting practices that improve the efficiency of public spending. Mexico also plans to improve corporate accountability, mainly through voluntary measures.

Norway

Norway’s Action Plan makes a number of commitments on: opening the public sector and making government more inclusive; on promoting gender equality; and, on transparency in the management of oil and gas revenues, and sovereign wealth funds. On natural resource revenues, Norway – although now soon to be joined by the USA – remains the only OECD country that has implemented the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Beyond its own oil-fields, Norway supports developing countries’ efforts to join the EITI, including through supporting international NGOs such as the Revenue Watch Institute and through Norway’s Oil for Development programme. Norway’s Action Plan also signals a commitment to consider introducing legislation – either in connection with planned EU legislation, or separately – to require multinationals to publish tax information on a country-by-country basis, a move that would go beyond what is currently being considered by the European Union.

Philippines

The Philippines’ Action Plan aims to enable citizens to participate actively and meaningfully in public policy and programmes, improving public services, increasing public integrity and enhancing the management of public resources. The Philippines’ new commitments on open governance include: measures to improve the transparency of government agencies; initiatives to deepen citizen participation, for instance through greater use of participatory budgeting and social audits; moves to enhance accountability of key government institutions; and innovative efforts to use technology to enhance transparency and accountability, for instance through the development of an interactive platform for citizens to find about budget allocations and to file citizen reports on budget implementation.

South Africa

South Africa’s Action Plan focuses on three key areas: tackling corruption; increasing citizen engagement in service delivery and policy development processes; and, holding public servants accountable to the public and the communities they serve through the development and implementation of an accountability management framework for public servants. On international action the OECD bribery convention is named as a key agreement, and South Africa’s world-leading performance on budget openness as measured by the Open Budget Index is rightly trumpeted. Eye-catching new commitments include strengthening the National Anti-Corruption Forum (including civil society representation) and Anti-Corruption Hotline, creating new guidelines on sanctions for corruption-related cases and a wide ranging budgets pledge to: ‘Enhance the involvement of civil society at every stage of the budgetary process across all spheres of government to enhance the progressive realisation of socioeconomic rights and enable citizens to track public expenditure.’

United Kingdom

The UK’s Action Plan is focused on enhancing public service delivery through open government. The UK’s Action Plan is focussed primarily on transparency and feedback in relation to domestic issues. It does however set out some measures that the UK Government will take to make aid more transparent and accountable, building on the UK’s leadership on transparency and accountability in relation to aid. Measures outlined include: the use of OGP-eligibility criteria and datasets to inform decisions about whether to provide budget support; the use of funds already earmarked for transparency and accountability to support OGP-related goals in developing countries; and, the publication – in an IATI-compliant manner – of information about aid spending by departments other than solely the Department for International Development. The UK’s Action Plan is silent as regards transparency about natural resource revenues in developing countries, a surprising omission given the UK Government’s stated support for EU legislation to match the USA’s ground-breaking legislation on extractives transparency.

USA

The USA’s Action Plan gives three key reasons for supporting OGP – as a means for accountability, to give people information they can use and to allow the public to have a greater say in how government is run. On aid transparency, the USA has committed to publish information about budgets, disbursements and project implementation on its Foreign Assistance Dashboard, in an internationally comparable manner – but not, it seems, as part of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) – with the data to be updated on a quarterly basis. The USA’s Action Plan emphasises that aid transparency supports evidence-based, data-driven approaches to foreign aid, approaches that can – where appropriate and feasible – make use of randomized controlled experiments). The USA has reaffirmed its position as a global leader on extractives transparency by committing to implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) domestically. This makes the USA the first G8 country to implement EITI and the second major developed producer after Norway. This will put ONE in a stronger position to advocate for African countries to implement EITI without being accused of double-standards.

Will come up with a better way of meshing my personal and ONE blogs at some point. Apologies for duplication.

The Tunis Consensus is the fruit of the second regional (African) meeting on Aid Effectiveness, held in November 2010. Organised by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Development Bank, the meeting was intended to set out an African agenda to take to the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, to be held in Busan, South Korea, in November/December 2011.

The Tunis Consensus sets out a clear vision of Africa’s development priorities, organised around six key elements:

1) Building capable states that can deliver development results

2) Developing democratic accountability on the basis of enhanced transparency and greater involvement of parliaments and citizens in decision-making

3) Promoting south-south cooperation and learning

4) Thinking and acting regionally in terms of infrastructure and investment

5) Embracing new development partners such as Brazil, China and India

6) Outgrowing aid dependence through greater trade and investment and building fair and efficient tax systems

The key point made by the Tunis Consensus – subtitled “from aid effectiveness to development effectiveness” is that “Aid is only one part of the solution to Africa’s development challenges”. As the Center for Global Development emphasised in a recent blog post, it is important that that message is heard and that African priorities are taken on board.

Nevertheless, aid remains an important part of the development landscape and making aid more effective remains essential. The key is to ensure that the wider picture of development effectiveness is not neglected. By focusing on transparency, accountability, country ownership and results – issues that provide a potential common ground for donors and recipients of aid – Busan can help to ensure that smart and effective aid supports African priorities and acts as a catalyst for development.

I am currently working for ONE as their Senior Policy Manager on Governance, Transparency & Accountability. Click here for more information about me, my skills and experience. Drop me a line at alan@alanhudson.info or follow me on twitter  @alanhudson1 NB: This blog and my tweets reflect my views, not necessarily those of my employer.