Development information - accounting and accountability
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Dear enews team
[see info at end of message]
I like to read the items you put in your messages, but am frustrated
because I would like to be able to get some key financial information
about these items that would serve to inform me about the importance
and scale of these items in relation to the problems that are being
addressed.
For example it would be interested to know how much the various ini-
tiatives cost and where the money was spent, NORTH or SOUTH, and who
did the implementing.
For example it would be useful if the expenditures made by government
and the ODA community in any area could be easily correlated to the
status of the indicator.. the DOLPHN database (www.phnip.com/dolphn/)
would be so much more useful if it was linked in such a way.
For example I read the entry about the HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs
Sourcebook being available.... this was the entry:
HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs Sourcebook Now Available. A "Sourcebook
of HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs" was recently published as part of
the global effort to accelerate the education sector response to
HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa. The sourcebook documents 13 educa-
tion-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs targeting children and youth
from seven sub-Saharan African countries. Developed by the Partner-
ship for Child Development with the World Bank, the publication was
also sponsored by USAID, Ireland AID, United Kingdom Department for
International Development, and several United Nation agencies. It is
accessible at:
お探しのページが見つかりません。 | プチプラコスメの口コミブログ プチビュー
......and I get the idea that maybe this is a multi-million dollar
project with all its heavyweight sponsors..... I thought there might
be a printing run of 200 million copies....... in possibly 50 lan-
guages..... and distributed in 50 high HIV-AIDS incidence countries
but I think it is something a little less ambitious with 100% of the
money spent in the NORTH with almost no practical impact in the
SOUTH. Maybe I am wrong, but it is hard to tell.
As long as only a little bit of information about how much money is
spent and where it is spent being put into easy public view, there is
no need to have accountability. Getting information about use of de-
velopment assistance money from the official development assistance
(ODA) community of the NORTH has been difficult for years..... this
is not new..... but it never was right and should be changed.
What is worrying is that big amounts of money are being talked
about... but only little money projects seem to get implemented on
the ground. The taxpayers know the money is spent, and they know what
the justification is for the spending. What they do not get to know
is actually what happened to the money. Who received the money and
what did they do with it?
The technology is available to make it relatively easy to get excel-
lence in accounting and accountability...... but there is no organi-
zation set up to do it. Accountability in development cannot be
funded by the ODA community..... it needs to be funded by independent
sources so that it can document what needs to be documented and not
just what the funding organizations want to see.
This posting is written with some level of frustration. This problem
has been around for at least 20 years. In 1978 the UN General Assem-
bly instructed UNDP to produce the Development Cooperation Report an-
nually for each member country.... and UNDP has done this with vary-
ing degrees of competence and enthusiasm for many years..... and this
collection of data is probably the best dealing with project money
flows into the SOUTH..... but the information is not at all easy to
get to unless you are working in the ODA community..... and as far as
I can tell is unlikely to find its way onto the Internet any time
soon. I hope I am wrong.
Information is one of the key missing elements for success in devel-
opment. Development will not succeed until the critical information
is chased out of hiding.
Sincerely
Peter Burgess
ATCnet in New York
Tel: +1-212-772-6918
Fax: +1-707-371-7805
mailto:peterb@iitc.safe-mail.net
Subj: USAID HIV/AIDS E-Newsletter--May 15, 2003
Date: 5/16/2003 10:52:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: <A HREF="mailto:enews@TVTASSOCIATES.COM">enews@TVTASSOCIATES.COM</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:SUBSCRIBE@LIST.S-3.COM">SUBSCRIBE@LIST.S-3.COM</A>
Sent from the Internet (Details)USAID HIV/AIDS E-Newsletter
May 15, 2003
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