In 2024, Belgium obtained - through our FPS - a score of 74.2 in the biennial aid transparency index. Our development cooperation is therefore performing well in terms of transparency, which has earned our country the 4th place among donor countries. Nevertheless, we will continue our efforts to further strengthen our transparency.

Advances in transparency

Belgium has made further strides in the transparency of its development cooperation, as evidenced by the results from the latest edition of the Aid Transparency Index, compiled by the British NGO Publish What You Fund, 2024 Index – Publish What You Fund. This international index assesses the transparency of major bilateral and multilateral donors, based on a set of measurable indicators.

Belgium – or in actual fact the Directorate General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (DGD) – is once again rated as 'good' with a score of 74.2. This represents a significant improvement from 63.3 points in 2022, and now places Belgium 19th out of 50 organisations assessed, and in 4th position on the list of bilateral donors, after the UK, Sweden and Germany.

 

Belgium ranks 19th out of 50 organizations surveyed and 4th among donor countries.
Belgium ranks 19th out of 50 organizations surveyed and 4th among donor countries.

 

The importance of transparency

Transparency is one of the five pillars of the international 'Aid Effectiveness' agenda, which took on its specific form primarily as a result of the 2005 Paris Declaration.

  • The five fundamental principles concern:
  • 'ownership' by partner countries
  • 'harmonisation' donors are on the same page and coordinate their actions
  • 'alignment' in line with the partner country's own sovereign strategies
  • 'focus on results' and not, for example, on donors' own geopolitical objectives.

Added to these is transparency, or, to give its full designation, 'transparency and mutual accountability', which acts as a guarantor of the other principles and as a means to enable public monitoring (of the use of these public funds), not only on the side of the donor, but also of the partner country.

These principles were further developed in subsequent 'High Level Fora on Aid Effectiveness', and led, amongst other things, to the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA). Accra also initiated the creation of the 'International Aid Transparency Initiative' (IATI) to shape the commitments regarding transparency from the 'Accra Agenda for Action'.

Belgium joined the IATI in 2012, and has since published daily updated data on DGD funding and annually updated data for the DGD on an organisational level.

 

Way forward

Belgium's good score and steady progress over the past few years is obviously due to teamwork: the professionalism of Enabel and above all the commitment of the DGD staff who devote time and care to the quality of the published data are crucial.

Belgium now wants to do even better. Public sharing of detailed and operational strategies needs to take place even more automatically than is currently the case, both with regard to partner countries and partner organisations: after all, this makes it possible to carry out actual monitoring and 'accountability', while simultaneously demonstrating, to citizens and other stakeholders, what is really at stake in our cooperation.

The same thing applies at project level: the systematic publication, for each funding initiative, of the specific objectives (ex ante) and the results achieved (ex post), can be embedded in a more structural way within our processes and in our collaboration with our implementing partners, so we can operate as unified Team Belgium.

 

Confirmation of Belgium's reliability as a partner

This strong performance in the Transparency Index once again confirms Belgium's reputation as a reliable and transparent team player in international development cooperation and as a partner that is focused on efficiency and is mindful of the involvement of all stakeholders, including the citizens in our country and in our partner countries.