Alliance for Open Society International, Inc.

Funding on accountability and transparency appears to be increasing, but there have been few opportunities for the various actors to come together to share approaches, work more synergistically, and think further about how to build the field. In July 2008, a workshop convened by DFID and OSI brought together over twenty participants from civil society organizations, bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, and private foundations for the purposes of sharing knowledge and practical learning, identifying key factors and issues for success, and, developing a broader vision and strategies for building the field collaboratively. This grant to the Alliance for Open Society International, Inc. (part of the Soros foundations network) will support a strategic funders' initiative that is a follow-on process to the workshop convened in 2008. It will develop and design a set of activities to advance some of the priority issues initially identified by the Bellagio group and further refined by a smaller group of funders and global re-granters. It will deliver specific products and strategies that have the potential to expand the evidence base, impact, and scope of the transparency and accountability field. (New, $150,000/19 months; 22% of project budget)