Experts from around the world are meeting this week in London to advocate for transparency in development efforts. The Conference on Transparency, Free Flow of Information and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is being held in advance of next month's UN Summit to review progress toward the Goals.

Established by the UN General Assembly's 2000 Millennium Declaration, the MDGs establish targets for global development by 2015 on topics such as poverty, education, maternal health, and environmental sustainability. The Obama administration has committed to the MDGs and in July released its strategy for meeting the Goals.

Transparency is essential to ensure that U.S. development funds are well-managed – and that they reach their destination, improving living conditions for people in the poorest parts of the world. Experts have noted that even if development projects are adequately funded, good governance is necessary to ensure those resources are actually applied toward their crucial purposes. As human rights group Article 19 notes in a fact sheet:

Increased transparency in the allocation of aid and spending of money enables an informed citizenry to hold decision-makers to account, reducing corruption and inefficiency, and promoting better governance and wider participation.

Before the transparency conference, several organizations sent a letter to the ambassadors organizing the UN Summit, urging that transparency's role in achieving the Goals be recognized and outlining steps to be taken:

There should be a clear and unequivocal commitment on the part of the international community to access to information and transparency as essential to the achievement of the MDGs ... (emphasis in original)

The U.S. strategy includes several transparency elements, as outlined by Publish What You Fund, including the development of an Aid Dashboard to monitor U.S. aid. However, the U.S. has yet to join the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which is establishing common international standards.

Both at home and abroad, federal spending requires transparency so taxpayers can demand accountability. The U.S. should increase transparency in its own foreign aid, and lead the call for transparency at the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals.