Transparency: World Vision bad, Mercy Corps good
And USAID Confused? That, at least, appears to be the assessment of one Till Bruckner, a former Transparency International aid monitor in Georgia (the country in the Caucasus, not the Peach State). In...
View ArticleGates Foundation Annual Report Released!
Yawner, you say? Not if you read the news on this report. Annual reports are often pretty boring. And the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s yearly report is seldom a thriller. But this year, some...
View ArticleNew tool for tracking foreign aid money
As part of the Obama Administration’s plan to reform foreign aid and to increase government transparency, they’ve launched a website that allows you to examine and track foreign aid. It’s called the...
View ArticleWhere, and to what, does foreign aid money go?
Chances are, most Americans were surprised to learn that Egypt has been the second or third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid over the years — and, perhaps, that most of that foreign aid was for...
View ArticlePetition: Make foreign aid transparent
There is a move afoot to “Make Aid Transparent.” No, not invisible. That’s actually a different problem. The problem being addressed by the organization linked to above — called, appropriately enough,...
View ArticleNumber crunchers say the evidence is: Transparency strengthens global health
A lot of people working in global health talk about the need for “transparency” and public accountability, but what does that mean? Why does it matter? At the UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and...
View ArticleUS firms like Microsoft and Amazon ranked low on transparency
Many American corporations, including tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon, score poorly in a new report by Transparency International which ranks the world’s top 105 corporations according to...
View ArticlePoint of clarification on 5 key points from Gates Foundation 2012 report
Last week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation release its annual report and I did a quick analysis of it, which I dubbed the Top Five Points. I selected five things from the annual report which...
View ArticleGlobal leaders try to get serious about hunger
Young people participating at the BigIf rally in Hyde Park. As the leaders of the world’s economic powers gather to discuss the state of the global economy and find common ground on pressing...
View ArticleRooting out seen and unseen corruption
A dapper Teodorin Obiang emerges from his luxury car. AFP Nine cars were sold off at an auction in Paris raising $3.6 million. Luxury names took the stage including Porche, Bugatti and Bentley. The...
View ArticleUSAID takes another forward step on budget transparency
Raj Shah United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Raj Shah announced that the US Foreign Assistance Dashboard was not only updated, but it included 53,000 financial...
View ArticleThe incredible shrinking Gates Foundation annual report
Humanosphere has noted before this trend of the Gates Foundation's shrinking annual report, coming on the heels of last week's announcement that the philanthropy scored 'very poor' when on the 2013 Aid...
View ArticleThink Tanks influence public policy, but who influences them?
Intercambio Climatico In the debate over whether the US should raise the minimum wage, the Employment Policies Institute has emerged as think tank cited in opposition to the increase. The name ‘think...
View ArticleGates Foundation does poor job communicating with outside world
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does many extraordinary things well, but public transparency and communicating with outsiders are not among them. That’s what the world’s biggest philanthropy...
View ArticleBetter foreign aid starts with re-defining ‘aid,’ says ONE Campaign
African governments and donor countries are not living up to their commitments to invest in health, agriculture and education, finds a report released Monday by the ONE Campaign. A lack of transparency...
View ArticleTop rated charity opens up its real-time data
The charity that allows people to make a direct donation to a person living in Kenya just got a whole lot more transparent. GiveDirectly unveiled a new website with live data showing how it is...
View ArticleWhere’s the beef? U.S. aid lagging on transparency, says report
The United States government made progress on full transparency for its aid spending, but there is still work to be done, says a new report. A review published this week by Publish What You Fund shows...
View ArticleWhy can’t we track money pledged for disaster relief?
When a disaster strikes, the world takes action to help people in need. Relief workers are deployed and pledges are made to finance the effort to save lives. What happens to all of that money? Where is...
View ArticleCorruption flourishes amid ‘pathetic levels of transparency,’ watchdog group...
Transparency is not a well-held ideal among many of the 100 fastest growing international companies based in developing countries. The average level of transparency among the companies fell in the past...
View ArticleIn a region riddled with corruption, Uruguay leads in transparency
While Brazil, Guatemala and other countries across Latin America continue the struggle to end political corruption and spur economic progress, Uruguay has been quietly setting a precedent for what it...
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