By David McNair
This week Follow the Money activists from around the world gather in Berlin to figure out how to translate the campaign for more and better information into policy changes that improve people’s lives. No small challenge, but this work is critical - not least because the opportunities for international action on transparency are unique in 2015.
This year, three global summits on finance, the Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Change, could reshape the fortunes of millions of people living in poverty, injecting new energy, ideas and cash into efforts to end extreme poverty, end preventable disease and ensure sustainability for the environment.
But these grand summits will mean little for the world’s poorest and most marginalised people without the information necessary to allow governments to invest resources effectively, and enable citizens to track where the money is going. Pumping more money into inefficient systems that allow for money to be siphoned off to corruption is not the answer.
Excerpt published courtesy of Thomson Reuters Foundation. You may read the balance of David's post here.
Dr. David McNair is Director of Transparency and Accountability at the ONE Campaign. Omidyar Network's Laura Bacon contributed to this post.