Enhancing the Transparency of U.S. Aid to Pakistan: It Starts with a Click

This is a joint post with Wren Elhai.Everyone (John Kerry, Richard Lugar, Richard Holbrooke, and, yes, CGD’s own Nancy Birdsall) agrees our aid program in Pakistan needs to be more transparent. Transparent aid can help to counter the widespread mistrust and misinformation about U.S. practices, and could also allow Pakistani civil society to play a role in monitoring how governments and NGOs spend money.  On the other hand, the status quo—a dearth of publicly accessible information on program objectives and spending -- “creates confusion and unnecessary speculation in Pakistan,” as Senator Kerry put it, “and limits the potential of the policy community and allies at home.”In March, CGD President Nancy Birdsall sent an open letter to Ambassador Holbrooke urging the administration to share more complete and timely information about program plans, commitments and actual disbursements.  One specific idea she highlighted was the creation of a public website with ongoing and detailed reporting on the plans, commitments, and disbursements of U.S. aid resources.  Senator Kerry, in a recent letter to Ambassador Holbrooke, suggested much the same thing.In his response to Kerry, Holbrooke endorsed that idea, writing, “Your suggestion of providing more information about our efforts on the Internet is a good one, and we plan on putting more information on the USAID and embassy websites as our plans become more concrete.”So, what would a more transparent website look like? It’s great to see Holbrooke thinking along these lines—and we should give credit to the staff of USAID’s Islamabad mission who have indeed started to put more information on their website. But much work remains. Compare the main information page of the USAID Pakistan website (above) with the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s site on aid to Benin (at right).The MCC website is one Nancy Birdsall mentioned in her letter as a possible model (along with the Recovery.gov website set up to track stimulus spending here in the United States). While the MCC site isn’t perfect, it does a lot right:

• It is crystal clear about what the program is trying to achieve, who will benefit, when the results are expected, and how much progress has been made thus far.
• It is concise and comprehensive. Without needing to click around and dig through documents, any viewer can get a quick and clear bird’s eye view of the most important information about the aid program – in one webpage.
• It is candid about how much money has been obligated, committed and disbursed.
• The country page includes the name and contact information for the national coordinator in charge, including a phone number and e-mail address.  (While this approach may not be practical in Pakistan, moving towards a more customer service-oriented approach that encourages direct communication between USAID staff and the Pakistani public might help ease the widespread suspicions of the U.S. aid program in Pakistan)

How is this different from the current USAID/Pakistan website?  Here are a few of our concerns about what we see now:

• The current USAID/Pakistan website features the stories of various projects, but lacks a clear narrative about the overarching goals for U.S. aid in each of the key sectors.  Right now the sectoral descriptions read like a laundry list of disconnected projects—and there is no page that gives an overview of the entire U.S. aid program.
• The site lacks up-to-date information on aid disbursements and spending.  For instance on the page “Pre-Service Teachers Education Program (Pre-STEP),” the short description gives no indication of how much money has already been spent, nor whether the program is on track.
• Also, the website fails to clearly identify the intended beneficiaries of the programs, including the numbers and characteristics of those who will be served by the program.
• In a very positive step towards greater transparency, the USAID Pakistan website now posts in depth project documents, budget plans, quarterly progress reports, and longer program evaluations.  However, the documents – which are in PDF form and linked in one long list under “publications” – are not as user friendly as we would like to see.  We imagine simple charts and tables, as on the MCC page above, for the aid program as a whole and for each sectoral program.

It is heartening that USAID and the State Department are striving to improve how they explain U.S. aid spending to Americans and Pakistanis alike. As they do so, however, they ought to think hard about what their audience is looking for. Some viewers may benefit from stories and images of specific beneficiaries of aid programs (heavily represented on the current site). Others may want a good overview of how USAID is planning to spend its aid dollars. Others still may want detailed information on the implementation of specific projects (or information on how they might apply to participate in certain programs). The USAID site would ideally cater to each of these audiences, allowing each visitor to quickly find what he or she is looking for.What else would you like to see on such a website? What advice would you have for USAID as it revamps and upgrades its Pakistan page?