Transparency Policy

Transparency Policy

The transparency policy aims to strengthen AFD’s credibility and accountability towards its stakeholders, the first being its Principals, partners and all French citizens. This communication contributes to building up a relationship of trust and a quality dialogue between AFD and all stakeholders. It also strengthens the legitimacy of French official development assistance for which AFD is the central operator.

With the adoption of this text Agence Française de Développement aims to give the public more access to information relating to financed operations (at the various stages of the operational cycle: processing, commitment, implementation, evaluation) in compliance with legal obligations on confidentiality. Disclosure will also bear upon its functioning and strategy. The relevant documents will be posted on the AFD website. In addition, specific requests for information will be dealt with via a dedicated e-mail address (transparence@afd.fr).

Accountability and operational transparency

The high requirements of AFD’s transparency action plan are also backed to the issue of aid effectiveness as defined by donors in the Paris Declaration signed in 2005 (accountability and impact). The recent Accra Forum (September 2008) gathered over a thousand people on this issue.

This transparency policy is core to AFD’s Social and Environmental Responsibility (SER) policy adopted in January 2007 and comprises several components:
  • it provides access to all information relevant to AFD’s mission: strategic, institutional and operational information;
  • it builds a dialogue with stakeholders;
  • any requests for information , explanations or observations on issues can be dealt with via a dedicated email address: transparence@afd.fr 
Structured information on projects and operations is published on AFD’s website in line with its transparency commitments. Information is presented by project and includes the context of the operation, the objectives, processes, resources implemented in 2008 and the scope of concessional financing (except for information protected under banking or business secrecy or information that the client refuses to disseminate). More detailed information is now made available at 2 stages of the project cycle: a Public Operation Brief (FPO) at the identification phase and an Operation Communication Brief (NCO) at the allocation phase. These documents are directly provided by the information systems of AFD’s operational departments.
=> In 2009 this transparency policy will be extended to non-concessional financing and PROPARCO’s operations.