Penplusbytes Represented on USAID’s Aid Transparency Country Pilot Assessment Panel

The Director of Projects at Penplusbytes, Jeremiah Sam, will sit as a panel discussant on USAID’s Aid Transparency Country Pilot Assessment which is scheduled to take place on June 4th, Washington DC, USA.

With the completion of USAID’s recently conducted country pilot assessment on aid transparency and the U.S. Government’s commitment to sharing data on aid flows through the ForeignAssistance.gov http://ForeignAssistance.gov website, the assessment team is expected to make a presentation of the findings and recommendations from the three country pilot study; Bangladesh, Ghana and Zambia.

Together with other panel participants including; Ms. Susan Reichle, USAID Agency Counselor, Ms. Claudia Schwegmann, Team Lead of the pilot study, Mr. Geoffrey Chongo, Programme Manager, Economic Equity and Development of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection in Zambia and Civil Society Representatives, Penplusbytes will provide additional insights and reactions on aid transparency and the issue of data use, after which there will be an opportunity for Q&A.

In addition, participants will have the opportunity to explore the redesigned ForeignAssistance.gov website presented by the U.S. Department of State.

Describing the Country Pilot assessment as ‘an extremely necessary exercise’ Jeremiah Sam added that, “As an organisation dedicated to enhancing Transparency and Accountability in all spheres of resource governance, Penplusbytes finds this an opportunity to understand the focus of the USAID and other donor partners as guide to designing interventions that fall in tandem to ensure greater, expected impact on society.

Mr. Sam, whiles in the USA, will have a robust informal brown bag session with officials from USAID on the latest trends in using ICTs in Ghana to empower citizens to hold government to account.

The US Government’s Aid Transparency initiative seeks to ensure greater accountability in government with specific instructions and milestones for achieving greater transparency, participation, and collaboration and this extends into the international community as well. The conference is therefore a step towards fine tuning systems and structures that promote these tenets in the allocation and eventual utilization of Aid funds targeted at meeting specific needs, especially in the 3^rd world.


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Penplusbytes is a not-for-profit organization that seeks to empower the media through the use of Information and Communications Technology to advance journalism in the coverage of governance and accountability, new media and innovations, and mining, oil and gas.
ForeignAssistance.gov was created in response to the principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and President Obama’s Open Government Initiative. The goal of the website is to enable a wide variety of stakeholders, including U.S. citizens, civil society organizations, the Congress, U.S. Government agencies, donors, and partner country governments, the ability to examine, research, and track U.S. Government foreign assistance investment in an accessible and easy-to-understand format.