By George Ingram, Senior Fellow Emeritus, the Brookings Institution, and Sally Paxton, U.S. Representative, Publish What You Fund.
As mandated by Congress, transparency is a cornerstone of US foreign assistance – and for good reason. Among others, it provides Congress, stakeholders, implementers, taxpayers, the executive branch, other donors, and development partners easy access to public websites and data sets to understand, improve, and hold to account U.S. foreign assistance programs. The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN)’s recent paper on the Department of State’s readiness to manage U.S. foreign assistance programs identified transparency as a critical issue that needs attention.