Coverage of the 2016 elections, now just under a year away, is inescapable these days, providing a constant reminder that the clock on the Obama Administration and the 114th Congress is quickly running out. This summer, MFAN launched the ACCOUNTdown to 2017 campaign as a way to track progress made toward strengthening the accountability and country ownership of U.S. foreign assistance. The goal of the campaign is simple: take stock of where Congress and the Administration are in meeting their reform commitments and outline further steps that should be taken before the buzzer sounds.
With 15 months to go, today we are launching the ACCOUNTdown Dialogue Series. Over the coming months, we will take a deeper dive into our pillar issues of accountability through enhanced transparency, evaluation, and learning, and country ownership of the priorities and resources for, and implementation of, development in order to publicly assess progress in these areas. The Dialogue Series will offer both an MFAN perspective and a U.S. government perspective on the current state of each of the 6 sub-pillars. We hope that you will follow along with the series and engage with us on social media to offer your own thoughts on where progress is being made or lagging, and what you hope to see this Congress and Administration accomplish.
Be sure to check back later in the week as we post our first piece on transparency from Lori Rowley, MFAN’s Accountability Working Group Co-Chair and Director of Global Food Security and Aid Effectiveness at The Lugar Center. Lori’s piece will discuss the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2015 (H.R. 3766 / S. 2184), which was recently unanimously approved by both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the upcoming December deadline for the United States to meet its commitment to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).