Washington, D.C.—The Millennium Challenge Corporation is the third-most transparent aid agency in the world, according to a new ranking by Publish What You Fund, a global campaign for aid transparency.
London-based Publish What You Fund’s Aid Transparency Index is the only global measure of aid transparency among leading development organizations. The index uses data from 39 indicators and looks at organizations’ published data and their commitment to transparency.
“This ranking underscores MCC's longstanding commitment to transparency and stands as a testament to the outstanding progress the U.S. Government has made in recent years to provide an unprecedented amount of data to the public," said MCC CEO Dana J. Hyde. “MCC invests in aid transparency because we firmly believe that holding ourselves and others fully accountable for the results of our investments is the best way to achieve our mission of reducing poverty through economic growth.”
MCC was ranked the most transparent donor organization in the U.S. Government. MCC’s efforts play a significant role in President’s Obama’s commitment to transparency and open data, as well as an overall U.S. Government effort to advance a reporting format that can be used by all federal agencies for reporting to the Foreign Assistance Dashboard.
In the past year, MCC has dramatically improved its own data. It added new data on results and on conditions to data.mcc.gov, and it has more fully automated its internal systems for reporting. It has also developed business processes required to make continual improvement possible well into the future.
Investing in improvements to the quality and accessibility of data is a core part of MCC’s business practice. MCC launched data.mcc.gov in 2012; the site houses data in machine-readable formats to meet the needs of a variety of stakeholders. MCC is also engaging with the private sector to see how it can use the agency’s data to help inform its investment decisions.
Openly sharing comprehensive information about MCC investments and results allows MCC to be accountable to U.S. taxpayers. It also provides partner governments, citizens and private sector actors with the information they need to make the most of scarce resources to promote increased economic growth in their own countries.