Financial foreign assistance is one of the most powerful ways that developed nations can help lower-income countries fight their ways through poverty, also yielding some of the most immediate results. That being said, many in aid-giving communities criticize foreign aid because there exists the idea that the money invested is wasted, used to line administrators’ pockets or be lackadaisically distributed to corrupt governments.

Futuregov estimates that annually, around $150 billion is contributed globally “to support human and socio-economic development worldwide.”

Given the global community’s demands for greater accountability and transparency in funding, the AidData Centre for Development Policy has been created as “a joint venture between the College of William & Mary, Development Gateway, Brigham Young University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Esri. The Centre’s work will initially be funded through a five-year $25 million cooperative agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).”

The program will combine the efforts of experts in a menagerie of different fields to track and make public the effects of specific foreign aid projects. The purpose of the program assessments is also self-reflective; ideally, the more stringently programs are criticized, the less money will be needed to affect a large impact.

Hopefully, AidData will put USAID back on the map of the United States’ foreign policy agenda and silence the naysayers against providing money for foreign aid.

– Nina Narang

Source: futureGOV
Photo: The Flat Hat