Justin Charity talks with a group that advocates for increased transparency on foreign aid:
“Transparency” is the latest buzzword, but what does it mean, and what does transparency promise? Our own Mark Schmitt questions whether, when it comes to domestic spending, transparency for its own sake makes for good governance. “Much transparency … actually obscures important facts in a sea of data points,” he writes.
The question of whether transparency in foreign aid poses the same problems or actually yields greater accountability is as important as ever, with money continuing to pour into Haiti after the January earthquake. TAP asked Karin Christiansen, director of Publish What You Fund and former policy manager for the ONE Campaign, about her group’s push for better transparency in foreign-aid spending.
