Information: Letting countries know what donors are doing

Oxfam America believes donors should provide aid in ways that strengthen the compact between effective states and active citizens—the government’s commitment to fulfilling its responsibilities and the people’s efforts to hold their government accountable. To help foreign aid strengthen the state-citizen compact, Oxfam is calling for reforms that let countries know what donors are doing (information), support countries’ own efforts to manage development (capacity), and better respond to country priorities (control).

A first step toward ownership is for donors to provide information about their efforts to recipient countries.

As we learned from people in governments, civil society, and US aid agencies in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Liberia, Kenya, and Rwanda, transparent and predictable information on US aid flows would go a long way in making US aid more useful to recipient countries.