Transparency and Global Health: Starting at the Top

This summer, I had the pleasure of attending the InterAction Forum (#IAForum) here in Washington, D.C. One of my most pleasant surprises was the acknowledgement and engagement at a very senior level around data sharing and transparency within the global development sector.

InterAction Executive Vice President Lindsay Coates hosted a panel discussion on transparency with senior representatives from several large organizations, including Caroline Anstey (World Bank Vice President for External Affairs), Jean-Louis Sarbib (Development Gateway CEO), Tony Pipa (USAID Deputy Assistant to the Administrator in the Bureau of Policy, Planning, and Learning), and Bradford Smith (Foundation Center President).

InterAction provides a nice summary of the discussion, and highlights several of the fairly bold key points made during the panel, including:

• The future of international development is tied to transparency and the need to release data to the public. (Caroline Anstey)
• USAID owes it to the taxpayers to be accountable, and should publicly disclose information because it shows positive program impact to key constituencies. (Tony Pipa)
• NGOs and foundations need to publish interactive information to enable better feedback from the communities they serve and the general public. (Jean-Louis Sarbib)

The panelists also discussed barriers to transparency. One of the main barriers that was mentioned—and that I keep running into with clients who are interested in sharing global health data online—is the fear of mistakes. They have two fears: that data is not clean, and that it might reveal mistakes that were made in a project, causing funders or the public to be upset.

USAID provides a nice example for us all, in fact. I like how it bravely acknowledges a mistake that was made in its own data presentation, by placing a correction right on the homepage of its Greenbook website:

"ERRATA: The amounts of Military Assistance originally reported for Afghanistan and Iraq in FY2009 were incorrect in both the print and web versions of the Greenbook released April 7, 2011. The correct amounts are $5.8 billion for Afghanistan and $2.6 billion for Iraq. The data and PDF version of the publication have been corrected on this website as of July 1, 2011."

If USAID can do it, then so can the NGOs and contractors it funds.

Some of the other points made during this session included the notion that many recipient countries will need to be persuaded that transparency is good for them—and that their funding depends upon it. And on the flip side, that transparency can be empowering for recipients of assistance. Caroline Anstey noted that openness doesn’t even have to be high tech. Imagine the power of posting a piece of paper on a school’s door stating the budget meant to arrive at that school—and the power of citizens then to hold the government accountable.

The big take-away for me from this year’s Forum is that there seems to be a common understanding at very high levels of influence in the sector that being transparent is a good thing—so we have perhaps crossed that hurdle. Now, we need to continue to put into place standards and structures so that countries, programs, and institutions are comfortable releasing their data—for the public good, better decision-making, and improved development outcomes. And then, the all-important question becomes, "Who will pay for transparency?" This question was asked by panelists and the audience. Donors and NGOs must acknowledge that the technology, people, and systems behind being transparent are worth funding.

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