Devex: DFID merger causes ‘serious transparency challenge’ for U.K. aid
“Research shows a vast discrepancy in the transparency of aid spending by the U.K.’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development. The ‘2020 Aid Transparency Index,’ published Wednesday by the Publish What You Fund campaign, found that DFID — which spends the bulk of U.K. official development assistance — is one of the world’s most transparent donors, rating it as ‘very good.’ Research commissioned by the U.K. government has found that seven out of 10 departments are not spending aid transparently enough to meet its own targets. But FCO — currently the U.K. government’s third-largest ODA-spending department, with an aid budget of £633 million ($792 million at current conversion rates) in 2018 — languished near the bottom of the index, with a rating of ‘fair.’ The report comes just a week after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that DFID would be folded into FCO, a move PWYF described as causing a ‘serious transparency challenge’ for U.K. aid. The research was carried out before the merger was announced…” (Worley, 6/24).