Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has been named the most transparent institution in the world by the Publish What You Fund, the global campaign for aid and development transparency.
It was noted that the bank’s Sovereign Portfolio now ranks first out of 50 global development organisations in its 2022 Aid Transparency Index released today with a top score of 98.5.
“I am elated to learn of this outstanding recognition from Publish What You Fund. It is a testament to the relentless efforts of the more than 2,000 personnel across our organization who work tirelessly to accelerate Africa’s progress. Maintaining razor-sharp focus, they consistently deliver top quality under the highest levels of scrutiny.
“I am incredibly proud of them. I commend Publish What You Fund for their important mission, combining robust research and technical expertise with targeted advocacy and engagement to make aid and development efforts more transparent and effective,” the president of the lender, Mr Akinwumi Adesina, said.
On his part, the Senior Vice President, Mr Swazi Tshabalala said: “I am absolutely delighted with this score in an index that plays a key role in helping promote openness and greater transparency among international agencies.
“The bank has worked hard over the years to improve the disclosure of its aid flows by providing consistent, high-quality, and easily accessible data. Our top ranking has significant human and financial resource implications, as this is the only way to conduct our development business.”
The chief executive of Publish What You Fund, Gary Foster said: “We congratulate the African Development Bank’s sovereign portfolio for achieving 1st place in the 2022 Aid Transparency Index. For many years now, the AfDB has engaged to understand the demands of the Index, and they have then re-engineered their approach to disclosure, accordingly publishing more comprehensive higher quality data.”
The lender achieved the highest score in the Aid Transparency Index’s ten-year history and moved into the top spot from its fourth-place ranking in 2020.
The index is the only independent measure of aid transparency among the world’s major development agencies and thinktanks have remained consistently in the ‘very good’ category since 2014.
AfDB has consistently demonstrated its commitment to increased transparency and its extraordinary progress over the past 10 years in providing high-quality information and becoming more transparent.
Publish What You Fund’s ‘very good’ status is the highest of the five categories used to assess organizations’ transparency. The ranking is based on several criteria. They include finance and budgets, basic information data, organizational planning and performance.
