Corporate report

FCDO response to the Aid Transparency Index 2024

Published 20 August 2024

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) welcomes the results of the Aid Transparency Index 2024 (ATI24) in which we have attained the status of ‘Very good’, with the best performance of any foreign ministry in the world and ranking joint tenth overall. Transparency with our partners and with the public is at the core of the FCDO’s approach to international development.

The FCDO’s performance represents a significant improvement from our first assessment in 2022 where we were classed as ‘Good’. The FCDO has improved its score by 11 points, the largest improvement across any development agency assessed in ATI24.

The FCDO is committed to working with partners to deliver even greater transparency. We welcome the feedback from Publish What You Fund (PWYF), who manage the Index, on where we can make improvements going forwards and have outlined our response to each of their recommendations below.

PWYF publish their full methodology and explanation of each issue considered in the assessment (PDF, 567 KB), including those highlighted below in relation to the FCDO’s transparency. Overall, PWYF noted:

FCDO scored above average across all components, particularly in the finance and budgets component, where it improved its forward-looking disaggregated budgets. In the project attributes component it improved its conditions data, adding these for the first time, and improved the quality of its activity descriptions.

Beyond our own performance, the FCDO remains a strong advocate for higher standards of development transparency globally and is an active member of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). We encourage other providers of development assistance to publish to the IATI Standard and improve the breadth and quality of their published aid information. Ultimately, better transparency supports data users and drives increased accountability and effectiveness of aid.

Recommendation 1

FCDO is under-performing in comparison to other agencies in the 2024 Index across several indicators including: implementer names and recognised references, finance type and flow type.

The FCDO will undertake specific testing to identify the small proportion of programmes that are not compliant with finance type and flow type requirements and take any necessary action to improve its transparency.

As recognised in the ATI24 report, the FCDO has a high number of implementing organisations – with over 1,300 implementers receiving funds in the last 5 years. We will undertake analysis of our programmes to identify gaps in transparency of implementing partner names and work accordingly to improve disclosure. For recognised references, there is no official database which presents a known challenge across the IATI publishing community ^{[footnote 1]}. In addition, the FCDO will therefore work with the IATI community to increase its disclosure of recognised references where possible.  

Recommendation 2

FCDO could improve its performance score by improving the publication of its results data across all IATI activities.

The FCDO publishes a range of results documents to the IATI Standard including results frameworks and annual reviews. Results frameworks monitor the achievements of a programme over the course of its implementation, including a series of indicators which set out ‘what success looks like’, and are regularly reviewed and updated. These are complemented by annual reviews (as well as a final programme completion review) which formally assess whether the results are on track, whether the programme represents value for money and what, if any, corrective action needs to be taken. The FCDO also publishes thematic outcome statistics, which voluntarily comply with the UK Code of Practice for Statistics, on: international climate finance; girls’ education; humanitarian and social protection; and, preventing gender-based violence. We continually review our approach to measuring results and work to improve the data we use, the methods we apply and the value of our statistics. We aim to make more data publicly available in a transparent and accessible way across our portfolio.

Recommendation 3

It could also ensure that all available pre-project impact appraisals include a full analysis of potential positive and negative externalities.

Pre-project impact appraisals are an integral part of the FCDO’s programme delivery cycle. All of the FCDO’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme business cases provide consideration of the positive and negative, primary and secondary effects expected to be produced by a development intervention in order to justify investment. Where appropriate, this may include an in-depth assessment of environmental, social or human rights impact and the business case will document the rationale for the level of assessment provided. This approach aligns with the HM Treasury’s Green Book – the overarching UK government guidance on how to appraise policies, programmes and projects. Working with PWYF, the FCDO developed new guidance to address their feedback and help users of the FCDO’s data understand what information we publish and where it can be found. The FCDO will keep this guidance under review and continue to engage with PWYF on its approach to assessing pre-project impact appraisals.

Recommendation 4

FCDO should publish consistent tender awards information for all of its activities.

In line with Public Contract Regulations 2015 and Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations 2011, the FCDO publishes its tenders and contracts to Contracts Finder – with links provided as appropriate in its IATI data. In the last financial year, almost half of the FCDO ODA programmes being delivered were managed through Accountable Grant Agreements, Memorandums of Understanding or other funding instruments. PWYF’s methodology considers a programme’s ‘Aid Type’ (ie whether it is budget support, a project, technical assistance, debt relief, and/or administrative costs) as part of its assessment as to whether a check for a tender and contract is relevant but this approach is not appropriate for the FCDO as it results in some of its programmes that do have published tenders and contracts not being considered. The FCDO has already engaged with PWYF to explore other ways in which it could demonstrate that a tender is not relevant for a programme. We will continue to work together on this issue to ensure that FCDO’s procurement transparency is appropriately appropriately assessed.

1. According to the IATI Secretariat, existing resources are “not comprehensive, particularly for aid-dependent countries with less digitisation, and there are often cases where the IATI Secretariat cannot find a suitable persistent reference” (‘Feedback requested: The challenge of finding organisation references for new publishers’, IATI Connect, March 2024) ↩