FCDO improves ranking on Aid Transparency Index for the first time since merger – Bond reaction

Today, Tuesday 16 July, Publish What You Fund has published its 2024 Aid Transparency Index, scoring the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) as “Very Good” for the first time since the FCO DFID merger.

• The bi-annual Aid Transparency Index is the only independent measure of global aid transparency and ranks the 50 major aid and development donor agencies based on their scores.

• This year the UK returns to the top ten most transparent aid and development donors improving on its 2022 position and meeting the target set in the 2023 UK International Development White Paper to rejoin the “Very Good” category.

• FCDO has made a focused effort to address the transparency issues identified in the 2022 Index, which will help people access its organisational and country strategies, see disaggregated budgets and get a clearer overview of its projects.

In reaction to the report, Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said: 

We’re encouraged by FCDO’s improved rating on the Aid Transparency Index. Despite difficult years following the merger, budget cuts and capacity shortages, these improvements in transparency reflect the impact of strong senior-level commitment and the hard work of the FCDO transparency team. 

We hope the new leadership maintains this commitment to improving transparency across all of government, especially as other departments and agencies with poor levels of transparency are increasingly spending the UK aid budget. To ensure value for money and to achieve the goal of tackling poverty, UK aid must be transparent and accountable to both the taxpayer and those who need it most.    We look forward to working closely with the new government on this to make sure they can achieve even higher levels of transparency across all departments.

ENDS.

Notes for editors

• The 2024 Aid Transparency Index report is available here. The Index website provides details of the scores and analysis of the performance of each donor. 

• Publish What You Fund is the global campaign for aid and development transparency launched in 2008.  

• The UK International Development White Paper is available to view on the UK Government website.   

• In 2023, the UK spent £4.3billion of the UK aid budget on refugee costs in the UK, with the Home Office spending approximately 19.2% of the UK aid budget. In the past the Home Office has been ranked with low levels of transparency and ICAI has reported that cross-government oversight and cooperation to manage in-donor refugee costs are not transparent and are inadequate for protecting the integrity of the UK aid budget. 

• The UK’s Development Finance Institution, British International Investment (BII) has considerable work to do to achieve their commitment to be the ‘most transparent development finance institution’ having scored 12th out of 21 institutions in Publish What You Fund’s bi-annual DFI Index (2023).   

• Bond is the UK network for organisations working in international development. Bond unites and supports a diverse network of over 350 civil society organisations from across the UK, and allies to help eradicate global poverty, inequality and injustice. 

• For further information or interviews please contact Jess Salter at [email protected] or call 07493200979.