Oxfam America and DFI, in partnership with Publish What You Fund, organized the Washington pre-launch of the Government Spending Watch report, website and database. The pre-launch was attended by many high-level US government officials, advocates and researchers interested in budget transparency and MDG spending. Kevin Watkins of Brookings, Jo Marie Griesgraber of New Rules and Sally Paxton of PWYF commented on the report findings and the overall initiative. For a copy of the executive summary please see here. The Washington launch was preceded by meetings about GSW with other technical partners, including the IMF, World Bank and International Budget Partnership, and also the findings and ways forward were discussed with representatives from many low-income country governments.

DFI worked with OIF to organize the first spring ministerial and technical meetings of the OIF Finance Ministries Network on Financing for Development. The meetings made decisions on the scope of future work and discussed their preferences for channeling additional concessional financing – via multilateral organizations rather than bilateral development banks or agencies, or global vertical funds. It also discussed priorities for future technical papers and newsletters, as well as plans for intensive assistance to pilot countries in developing financing strategies, and plans for advocacy and coordination around G8, G20 and African Caucus meetings.Activities of the network and relevant news and documents will be published in a  quarterly newsletter.