Marrying new global players with the international aid transparency initiative : the future of aid data governance

Development aid forms an important link between rich countries, poor countries and poor people. But there have been serious concerns raised by aid critiques about the quality and accuracy of the global aid data (Riddell 2007, Easterly and Pfutze 2008 and Birdsall et al, 2010). It is often incomplete and of poor quality. Though OECD DAC has long played a key role in defining and capturing data on development finance and monitoring its global standards for DAC donors (OECD, 2011), question arises as whether its existing standards or categorization are inclusive enough to integrate the new global players or not? Given the growth in the number of players in development finance and when the new global players are continuously increasing their respective aid financing, it becomes apparent that their exclusion will prohibit getting a full picture of the future global aid governance. There are ongoing efforts like International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) to improve aid data transparency and reform the way aid data is disclosed by established players as well as new global players. The lack of aid data availability of the new players in existing global aid governance is difficulty attributed to their data capture, methodology and different data categorisations. So against this backdrop, the paper aims to explore the relationship between established players and new global players as they both grapple with rival definitions of aid quality. Whether the newly established transparency standards of aid data provide any way forward to the future of aid data governance where all new players will adhere to IATI standards. The paper will investigate the incentives and disincentives for the new global players to adhere to IATI standards and in the wake of any binding standards (IATI or OECD), what challenges and opportunities they bring to the future of aid data governance. And how does the existence of IATI standards shape the dynamics of rising power under South-South Development Cooperation? Recent initiatives like AidData have attempted to build upon the existing OECD database and included other new players like India, South Africa and Brazil in their comprehensive development finance database but unable to do so for China. As the IATI has finalized a standard which all the established players having signed the IATI leaving behind a few major players like USA and Japan, the larger issue remains as how IATI as new ‘governance through standards’ tool would bring rising powers on board to adhere to its data standards and improve the overall governance of aid. What would be the norms, authority and legitimacy of involving emerging donors with this proposed aid data governance through standardization (IATI)? Drawing on current research into the categorisations of aid data by new donors, the paper discusses options for bringing in new donors into the IATI standard, including south-south cooperation in forming acceptable standards. The future of aid data governance very much depends upon if and how the new global players marry with the International Aid 1 The paper is based on the ongoing research titled ‘A Future for Aid Data: Research towards a South-South Cooperation Data Categorization to complement on-going IATI Categorizations’ funded by DFID through its Future of Aid and Beyond Research Competition 2010-11 2 [email protected] & [email protected] (International Development Department, University of Birmingham) Paper prepared for PEG Net Conference 2011: Poor Countries, Poor People and the New Global Players, Hamburg, Germany, 7-9 September 2011 2 Transparency Initiative, which is a tool for aid data governance through standardization. The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness is scheduled to take place in late Nov 11 and how this marriage of IATI with new global powers will take place is yet to unfold.