The U.S. QuODA Score Improves with IATI Signing

This is a joint post with Will McKitterick. When the second edition of the Quality of Official Development Aid (QuODA) index was released, I blogged on the poor score for the United States and had suggested that signing onto IATI – the International Aid Transparency Initiative – was one easy way to improve its grade. Now that the United States has agreed to join, it’s worth revisiting the QuODA formula. By signing onto IATI, the U.S. improved its Transparency and Learning QuODA score markedly. By implementing IATI reporting standards, the U.S. will become a global leader in transparency and learning. The following numbers are interesting: 12 – The U.S. rank before signing IATI (out of 31 donors ranked in QuODA). 9 – The U.S. rank as a signatory. 3 – The U.S. rank if IATI is fully implemented. Of course, this assumes that all other donor scores will remain constant.  But the improvement is notable, and even more so if U.S. agencies take the initiative seriously by expeditiously moving to report aid data according to IATI standards.