transparency Archives - Humanosphere

transparency

Point of clarification on 5 key points from Gates Foundation 2012 report |

Tom Paulson

Last week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation release its annual report and I did a quick analysis of it, which I dubbed the Top Five Points. I selected five things from the annual report which caught my attention, one of which made some folks at the philanthropy unhappy.

That was point 3:

There’s nothing in this annual letter (or in Raikes’ new blog post) following up on what has been a chronic complaint about the Gates Foundation — it’s lack of transparency and relatively poor communication skills with grant recipients and outsiders. Last year, Raikes addressed this complaint head-on and said they intended to improve. Does anybody know what happened? Did I miss something?

Well, I did miss something. My words are factually correct — in that this chronic problem was not mentioned in the annual report. But I did, in fact, neglect to mention a number of efforts underway by the Seattle philanthropy to improve its communications with grant recipients and the outside community. I neglected them because I didn’t know about them. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, annual report, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, communication, grantees, Jeff Raikes, transparency

July 13, 2012 | 1:40 PM | By Tom Paulson |

US firms like Microsoft and Amazon ranked low on transparency |

Many American corporations, including tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon, score poorly in a new report by Transparency International which ranks the world’s top 105 corporations according to their accountability and transparency.

Why would a news site that covers global health and the fight against poverty care about corporate transparency?

Flickr, Sosialistisk Ungdom

Burning oil fields, Nigeria

Well, for example, think about what the oil industry has done to improve the health and well-being of most Nigerians.

I’ll give you a hint: Not much. Arguably, the global oil industry has even undermined the health and welfare of most Nigerians. It has been rife with charges of corruption (foreign and national), despoiled the environment in many oil-producing communities and enriched the elite in Nigeria. Little of Nigeria’s oil wealth ever seems to ‘trickle down’ to average citizens or into basic government programs aimed at improving health or welfare.

Recently, in fact, the life expectancy in Nigeria actually declined to 47 years, one of the lowest in West Africa.

Nigeria is a great example of how overall economic growth and wealth does not necessarily translate into overall improvements for the people of a nation experiencing such growth.

So how best to make sure private enterprise and economic development are actually serving the interests of the people?

Corporate transparency. It is really the only “market-based” solution to keeping big firms accountable and reducing government corruption when it comes to the kind of deals made at this level of commerce.

Today, mega-corporations are often cutting deals with developing country governments to, say, build a bridge, start a manufacturing plant or buy up land for ‘agricultural reform projects’ (the latter which often seems to involve kicking smallholder farmers off their land).

So corporate transparency is actually central to the humanitarian enterprise, especially with the growth of ‘public-private partnerships’ and the push for market-based solutions to problems of poverty and inequity. The Guardian has published a graphic illustrating the latest Corporate Transparency Index rankings of the world’s top 105 countries.

Norway’s oil company Statoil breaks from the pack as the world’s most transparent mega-corporation and Bank of China is least transparent. Lovable old Warren Buffett and his Berkshire Hathaway firm doesn’t look too good actually. Surprisingly perhaps, many of the top international pharmaceutical firms score pretty high.

Below is just a screen grab from The Guardian. Go to their site for the interactive map and data.

FILED UNDER: Justice, Politics, corporations, transparency

June 21, 2011 | 11:28 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Number crunchers say the evidence is: Transparency strengthens global health |

Flickr, withassociates

A lot of people working in global health talk about the need for “transparency” and public accountability, but what does that mean? Why does it matter?

At the UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, it includes allowing journalists like me to sit in on even the most contentious internal debates and policy discussions. Last week, the IHME held its annual Board of Directors meeting — and I sat in for some of the closing remarks.

I’m highlighting this practice because, as I wrote yesterday regarding the editor of Lancet boycotting Seattle’s Pacific Health Summit, it still seems acceptable to many in the global health community to exclude the public — or at least keep them at an arm’s length from the true debates and discussions.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Basics, Chris Murray, Cristian Baeza, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Peter Piot, Richard Horton, transparency

June 9, 2011 | 10:18 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Petition: Make foreign aid transparent |

There is a move afoot to “Make Aid Transparent.”

No, not invisible. That’s actually a different problem. The problem being addressed by the organization linked to above — called, appropriately enough, Make Aid Transparent — is that governments (including our own) don’t always reveal in much detail about what they are, or are not, doing in foreign aid and where the money goes.

The different problem of aid invisibility is that many people, in the U.S. anyway, appear to be largely unaware of what foreign aid accomplishes and how little we actually spend — only about one percent of the federal budget.

But that’s another story. Here’s a good article in the Guardian on Britain’s development chief, Andrew Mitchell, explaining why foreign aid is in the national interest. Same argument goes for the U.S.

Maybe more people would have better appreciation of the potential value of foreign aid (yes, like anything, it’s debatable) if governments were more open and transparent about aid.
Here’s an animation from Make Aid Transparent asking to you sign their petition:

Make Aid Transparent from Make Aid Transparent on Vimeo.

FILED UNDER: Politics, foreign aid, transparency

February 9, 2011 | 11:47 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Where, and to what, does foreign aid money go? |

USAID

Chances are, most Americans were surprised to learn that Egypt has been the second or third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid over the years — and, perhaps, that most of that foreign aid was for military spending.

Nobody was hiding this from us, but I suspect few of us ever pay much attention to where our foreign aid money goes and what it goes for (as well as how little we actually do give).

Members of Congress are now paying more attention, specifically at all that foreign aid we’ve given to Egypt while neglecting to appreciate what was actually going on there. But the problem of tracking where foreign aid goes — and defining it, I would argue — is not unique to us, or to the crisis in Egypt.

Surprisingly, given all the attention and rhetoric around foreign aid, it’s been a relatively opaque activity. This article written last fall by The Guardian’s Jonathan Glennie provides a good explanation of why “we need greater transparency” in foreign aid. Says Glennie:

There are two groups of people who tend to be against this sort of transparency: bureaucrats and politicians.

But a new international agreement is being celebrated as a major step forward aimed at making foreign aid more open and accountable to the public. The agreement, called the International Aid Transparency Initiative, is being widely hailed as “revolutionary” in development circles.

We’ll see. But I do give credit to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for moving in this direction on its own with the very informative and user-friendly website Foreign Assistance Dashboard.

Here’s a Dutch perspective on this new agreement. Note that the Dutch people protested planned cuts in foreign aid. Can you imagine Americans protesting cuts in foreign aid?

FILED UNDER: Basics, foreign aid, transparency, USAID

December 17, 2010 | 9:00 AM | By Tom Paulson |

New tool for tracking foreign aid money |

As part of the Obama Administration’s plan to reform foreign aid and to increase government transparency, they’ve launched a website that allows you to examine and track foreign aid.

It’s called the Foreign Assistance Dashboard. Here’s a screen grab look at one page on the site:

foreign aid dollars by country

As the Global Campaign for Aid Transparency and Tom Murphy of A View From the Cave both note, it is still a work in progress but a step in the right direction. Says Murphy:

The matrix of information shows that there is still a lot of information yet to be published, but I find it to be encouraging that they are following through with the idea. By sharing the matrix, they have shown what they intend to accomplish and how much information has yet to be added to the site.

FILED UNDER: Basics, foreign aid, Obama Administration, transparency

September 7, 2010 | 5:52 PM | By Tom Paulson |

Gates Foundation Annual Report Released! |

Yawner, you say? Not if you read the news on this report.

Gates Foundation 2009 annual report

Annual reports are often pretty boring. And the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s yearly report is seldom a thriller. But this year, some media were able to find controversy to spice things up.

The Seattle AP reported that the “Gates Foundation acknowledges flaws.”

The Puget Sound Business Journal’s headline quoted Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes saying the philanthropy’s work is “Not a popularity contest.” The Journal also noted the report, which was to be released Wednesday, was released early due to AP breaking a news embargo.

So what were these flaws, these unpopular activities, that the world’s biggest philanthropy was forced to deal with a day ahead of schedule?

These were complaints the Gates Foundation heard from its grant recipients last spring. In a survey sponsored by the Seattle philanthropy, grantees characterized the foundation as uncommunicative, confusing to work with and not very transparent.

Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes

Raikes took the initiative on this bad report card and responded publicly to the complaints last June. He pledged that by 2013 the foundation and grantees will have stronger partnerships characterized by three things:

First, we will understand each others’ roles, goals, and strategies
Second, we will have open, two-way communication
Third, they will have a clear understanding of our decision-making and grant-making processes

Almost none of this was included in the annual report, with these “flaws” meriting only a single paragraph from Raikes. He just said they were “sobering” and are working on improving in these areas.

Why set 2013 as the deadline, I wonder? Why will it take three years or so for the Gates Foundation to understand its grantees, engage in two-way communication and make their grant-making understandable?

In any case, the foundation’s annual report is actually not a bad read.

It has much more than the requisite financial information and does provide perspective on the Gates Foundation’s workings. And for those who like moving pictures, the philanthropy has provided video interviews of select people like Raikes, other staffers, grant recipients and partners.

FILED UNDER: Basics, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, report, transparency

August 25, 2010 | 6:00 AM | By Tom Paulson |

Transparency: World Vision bad, Mercy Corps good |

And USAID Confused?

That, at least, appears to be the assessment of one Till Bruckner, a former Transparency International aid monitor in Georgia (the country in the Caucasus, not the Peach State).

In brief, Bruckner’s complaint stems from a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) he made to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) asking for detailed descriptions of the budget and finances of ten NGOs active in U.S.-sponsored development projects in Georgia.

Flickr, by Austin Kleon

Redacted Information

As a journalist who has had lots of frustrating experiences with FOIAs and trying to get answers from government agencies, I had to chuckle when reading Bruckner’s exasperated comments about waiting 14 months only to receive highly redacted copies of the information. I feel his pain.

The story begins, at least for most of us, with Bruckner’s post on AidWatch in which he singles out two locally familiar humanitarian organizations — World Vision, for asking USAID to keep its finances secret and Mercy Corps, for allowing USAID to provide the information.

Since then, both World Vision and Mercy Corps have rebutted Bruckner’s claims. World Vision issued a statement saying it did not ask USAID to redact its financials and that USAID did it on its own.

Mercy Corps also issued a much more detailed response, basically saying it had concerns about Transparency International’s request and attempted to discuss it with Bruckner. It’s not clear if Mercy Corps was even contacted by USAID about the request for the information. Continue reading →