Dear James,

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and insights about the role of media in securing accountability in the development field. I absolutely agree with your point that donors are usually more accountable to their own citizens than to the beneficiaries of the aid. This can be witnessed in the donor reports, pre-established project targets and, in some cases, donor requirements to hire either people or companies from the donor country to complete specific project tasks. The latter one always amazes me, because I see it as discrimination against citizens of other nations. If citizens or private companies of the donor country are selected to be part of the development project only because their government provided aid money, what happens to the traditionally preached principle of meritocracy?

Also, using media to keep aid beneficiaries informed and to educate citizens about their rights to hold government accountable is absolutely crucial. However, as you mentioned in your comment, the international media are not always willing to work with local media. And in many cases, neither international media nor the local one collaborate with civil society that can be a good source of information and leading accountability force. It is also important to remember that even if local media is less efficient or underfunded, it would still be more widely used and better understood by local people. In some cases, local media simply does not know enough about an issue to be able to cover it accurately, let alone to do it in way that would inspire citizens' involvement and government's accountability. Thus, I think it is key to invest in educating and training local media on how to cover topics relevant to development aid, government accountability, citizen engagement, etc.

This is my two cents. I am looking forward to hearing from others.

Best,

Bahar Salimova