My name is Omoyemen Lucia Odigie-Emmanuel.  I speak as a representative of the CSOs for Financing for Development Group and the Women Work Group on FFD. In order to meet the ambition of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and to truly follow-up and review it’s implementation, access to data for monitoring and follow up is imperative.

 

The fundamental principles and elements of a monitoring and follow up system that will suffice for today’s people centered development, and which leaves no on behind are access to data for monitoring and follow, transparency and accountability. These principles are rooted in the right to information which is an important aspect of the freedom of expression and opinion as recognized by the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR Article 19) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR Article 25).
In reality at the global, regional and  national levels, each individual should have appropriate access to data on financing for development. However, many stakeholders in developing countries do not have access to timely, accessible or forward looking data and information on resource flows. This includes decision-makers at subnational level who need data for planning and delivery of services.
We believe that references to the importance of transparency and accountability in the follow-up of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda are not matched by strong commitments from governments to publish timely, comprehensive, accessible and forward-looking information about all development activities and resource flows, public and private, domestic and international, including about revenues, allocations, spending, contracting and results.
Also, there is very little data on which to base top-level financing targets; and especially little evidence in this data on the impacts of flows, particularly private flows. Gender disaggregated data including data on poverty, needs and human development indicators are currently poor, out of date, not disaggregated or detailed enough and do not tell us whether existing finance is responding to needs in many countries.
We call upon Member States to commit to the implementation of existing open data standards and  to publish  in acceptable and accessible open data, comprehensive formats – accurate, timely, gender disaggregated and standardized and comparable data on revenue, expenditure, contracting and results, including publication of  key budget documents.
We call on members states to take practical steps in ensuring that every man, woman, young person, child and other vulnerable and marginalized people – especially the poor – have access to data concerning financing for development in the language they understand, through appropriate methods of dissemination suitable for the state in life of such people including the blind and people with disabilities.
Also, many international goals and commitments, including a number of those contained in the Monterrey and Doha outcomes, have been left without any follow-up mechanisms and may never been implemented by governments, we demand a strong commitment to strengthen an institutionalized process to guarantee a robust implementation of the FFD agreements made in Monterrey, Doha and Addis in the FFD follow up process.