Belgium strongly advances in the 2016 Aid Transparency Index

Belgium is strongly advancing in the Aid Transparency Index, which maps the transparency of aid flows. Our country’s aid transparency increased since the last analysis in 2014 from 18.8% to 47.7%. “With this position, we rank in the middle group and we have a better score than organizations such as the Gates Foundation or countries such as Switzerland, France and Norway. In the next years we should make additional efforts in order to reach the world’s top in terms of transparency of our aid flows,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo.

“Citizens have the right to know where their tax money ends up and which results are achieved with it. This transparency helps increase aid effectiveness and it is necessary to increase public support for international development,“ said Alexander De Croo.

From laggards to the middle group
The past few years, Belgium achieved a very low rating for its policy of transparency in the field of international development. In 2013, our country achieved a score of 23.4%, in 2014 we did even worse with 18.8%. This year, Belgium sees a strong progress up to 47.7% and this ranks our country for the first time in the middle group, which includes Australia, USAID and the European Investment Bank.

That middle group gets the classification ‘fair’ and consists of donors that already publish a lot of basic information, but can still improve their transparency at a more detailed project level and on the results.

In the following years, Minister De Croo wants our country to increase its transparency efforts within international development policy. These efforts reflect the choice to focus more on achieving results rather than simply spending budgets, as a measure of the quality of the Belgian development policy.

More transparency , fewer administrative burdens
In the course of next year, the governmental and non-state actors of the Belgian Development Cooperation will be able to upload their expenditures and results to a new transparency portal of the Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development.

With this approach it will be more easier to map the use of all the Belgian Development Cooperation’s resources, while also reducing the administrative burden for the development actors. As soon as the data that meet the IATI standards are submitted to the transparency portal, they will immediately be available to all federal government departments. In agreement with the only once principle, actors won’t have to report any longer through other channels.

More information about the 2016 Aid Transparency Index : http://ati.publishwhatyoufund.org

2016 Aid Transparency Index