Donor governments were failing to make available the information needed to prevent corruption in international aid projects and to permit taxpayers to evaluate the effectiveness of aid spending, according to a report by transparency NGO Access Info Europe. Only half (52%) of the very basic information which should be published on aid agency websites is available according to the report “Not Available! Not Accessible!”. The study evaluated information on the websites of five leading aid agencies: Canada, France, Norway, Spain, and the UK. The monitoring, which focused on tracing aid flows to five recipient countries (Afghanistan, Kosovo, Mozambique, Peru, and Sierra Leone) found a series of problems including: lack of clarity on who takes decisions on aid spending and how; negligible evidence of consultations with stakeholders; inaccessibility of current financial information; inconsistent financial reporting; and the absence of anti-corruption mechanisms, such as corruption risk assessments, gifts registers, assets declarations. The report calls on donors to take urgent steps to increase the quantity and quality of information made available about aid activities and funding in order to begin to meet commitments made in Accra, Ghana, in 2008, when donor governments pledged to make make aid more transparent.
