Create a shared public tracker of international pledges and what was actually paid

The problem: large international pledges are announced with fanfare, but few people can find out later how much was paid, when, and whether it was new money.

The proposal: a single, public, searchable tracker where every major pledge is recorded with its date, amount, currency, instrument (grant, loan or guarantee), recipient type and delivery schedule. Each pledge has a status that moves from promised to committed to disbursed to spent, updated at least twice a year.

Who acts: donor governments report in a standard format; an independent organisation, such as a research institute or an international body, hosts the tracker and publishes the method; civil society groups and journalists can flag gaps.

Costs and trade-offs: hosting is cheap compared with the sums involved, but donors may resist transparency. A short, standard template lowers the burden, and publishing the donors who report promptly creates a gentle incentive.

First step: begin with a single pledge area, such as climate or health finance, and publish the first status table.