According to statements of the new German minister for development cooperation, Dirk Niebel, transparency and accountability are very high on the agenda in German Development cooperation. However, looking more closely it seems that this commitment only holds as long as the transparency and accountability of other stakeholders are concerned.
In 2008 Germany signed the International Aid Transparency Initiative in Accra and promised together with other major donors “We will make aid more transparent.” At the recent steering committee meeting in Paris, however, the German position was more than disappointing. On the 7th of July 2010 donors agreed on data standards for aid information that is already available at the donor level and should be made publicly available. While most donors will aim to adopt these standards before the next High Level Meeting in November 2011 in Seoul, the German representative clearly announced that Germany will not be able to meet this timetable.
Of course, Germany governmental development cooperation is undergoing a major organisational change. Of course, a donor like Germany with many smaller projects faces more challenges than donors with large percentages of budget support. But the reluctance of Germany seems to go beyond technical problems and touch upon a more fundamental recognition of the value of open data. Research on the merits of transparency presented in Accra and the IATI consultations with CSOs and recipient countries clearly point to the importance of detailed financial information. Despite this, the German representative at the steering committee questioned the value of detailed transaction-level data: “Who will use it?” Also on the critical issue of forward-looking data to allow financial planning in recipient countries Germany was very sceptical with regards to the validity of such data.
It would probably be helpful to have more information about how exactly Germany views the IATI process and what the official BMZ position on IATI is. But unfortunately, there is no information about this available on the BMZ website. Seriously, Mr. Niebel, how important is aid transparency in Germany?
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