Experts from around the world are meeting this week in London to advocate for transparency in development efforts. The Conference on Transparency, Free Flow of Information and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is being held in advance of next month's UN Summit to review progress toward the Goals.

On Monday, the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that all security contractor firms would have to end operations in the country within the next four months, allowing employees to either join the Afghan police force or look for another line of work. Successful implementation of Karzai's order, though difficult, could radically transform the debate around the use of private security contractors (PSCs) in war zones.

Testifying before a Senate subcommittee last week about efforts to deploy a sophisticated fraud-prevention tool developed through the Recovery Act across all federal agencies, a government official told senators that the "biggest impediment" to successful utilization of the technology is "the lack of a...governmentwide award number system." Adoption of such a system, which would provide a universal code to government contract awards, could transform federal contracting oversight.

Open government advocates have raised serious concerns over a little-noticed provision in the new financial reform legislation that severely restricts the public's access to records held by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The new provision exempts certain SEC records from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The aim of the new legislation is to increase transparency in the financial sector, but without access to enforcement records and other regulatory documents, the public loses a vital tool for holding our financial system regulators accountable.