Tierney talks foreign aid and transparency on With Good Reason

Transparency AidData, a public website and search engine tracking development finance flows, is coordinated by William & Mary's Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations in collaboration with Brigham Young University and Development Gateway.

by Suzanne Seurattan | September 19, 2011

William and Mary’s Michael Tierney talked with the radio program With Good Reason Sept. 17 about the AidData Project and making foreign aid more accountable. The interview will be re-aired on public radio channels in Virginia this week. Broadcast times are posted online.

He discussed how much aid is given annually, traditionally how that has been tracked, how that tracking system is changing and how AidData is facilitating that change.

Tierney is a co-founder of the AidData - a collaborative project between the College of William & Mary, Brigham Young University and Development Gateway; the Hylton Associate Professor of Government and International Relations; director of the international relations program and director of the Center for the Theory and Practice of International Relations.

He told Sarah McConnell, the show’s host, that one of the great benefits of the AidData Project and the AidData database was providing the public with a more transparent view of the world’s donors.

“In the past when people have talked about donors the were usually talking about Western Europe, the United States and Japan and now we have been tracking, I think in a systematic way, money from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. And they are giving more than you would think and they are becoming more and more transparent.”