Dóchas Annual Conference 2013. Transparency in Action - Dóchas AGM Conference 2013 Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle Thursday 2 May 2013, 10am-12.30pm.
IATI and CSOs. Will NGOs Join the Open Data Movement? Roughly 700 people from more than 50 countries registered for this week’s International Open Government Data Conference (IOGDC), co-sponsored by Data.gov, the World Bank Open Data Initiative and the Open Development Technology Alliance.
NGO Accountability. NGOs and IATI: British NGOs. This year’s Partos Plaza, the annual knowledge market of Partos, hosted a workshop for Dutch NGOs working on open data and the International Aid Transparency Initiative.
The workshop was set up as peer discussion meeting for a small group of staff members working to open up the data of their organisation, and was facilitated by members the Open for Change team. The questions that arose were similar to those that came up during a meeting in September, that was organised by Bond UK, the UK platform of Development NGOs, organised together with DFID and AidInfo, and that I was happy to be able to attend. On both occassions the questions that arose concerned security issues, necessary investments of time and money and where to start. DFID was the first donor country to start implementing IATI, and now expects DFID funded NGOs to do the same and prepare for the publication of their first data sets by April 2012 . Anne-Marie Heemskerk (amh@partos.nl) Partos/Open for Change Other useful links: InterAction (US) on Transparency. Both donors and NGOs recognize that transparency is key for accountability and greater effectiveness.
In 2008, donors launched the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), a voluntary, multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to make information about aid spending easier to access, use and understand. As of May 2012, 31 donors – including the U.S. government – have become signatories to IATI. InterAction has joined an international, CSO-led working group to discuss the application of the IATI standards to CSOs, which have also recognized the importance of transparency. In the 2010 Istanbul Principles for CSO Development Effectiveness, endorsed by civil society representatives from around the world, CSOs committed to practicing transparency and accountability to create public trust and enhance CSO credibility and legitimacy. For more information on InterAction’s work on IATI or to join our transparency email list, please contact Laia Grino. Resources. Open data and the charity sector: a perfect fit. Government officials, charity leaders and senior figures from the open data movement said on Monday that the UK must foster an environment of collaboration and transparency in order to share best practices from the public and private sectors with nonprofit organisations.
"Part of the value of civil society is holding power to account, and if this can be underpinned by good quality data, we will have a very powerful tool indeed", said Nick Hurd, Minister for Civil Society. Standard, Schema and Guides for implementing IATI. Open Development Data. Transparency in nutrition: Launching a transparency revolution on June 8. A farmer harvests wheat on a field in the El-Menoufia governorate, about 9.94 km (58 miles) north of Cairo April 23, 2013 REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
In less than two months, UK Prime Minister David Cameron will host the 2013 G8 summit in Lough Erne. The Prime Minister has placed the issue of transparency at the heart of his G8 priorities, alongside the other two “Ts” of tax and trade. Speaking on the importance of transparency, he said “open societies and open governments will help drive lasting global prosperity.”
A week before the G8 Summit, David Cameron is hosting another major international event, entitled Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger Through Science and Business. Britain's foreign aid: Follow the money. BRITAIN'S Department for International Development (DfID) is widely regarded as a trend-setter in the aid business.
Under Andrew Mitchell, the agency tightened spending, cut the number of countries receiving aid and ceased funding United Nations agencies for housing and economic development that it determined were not delivering. Now its new head, Justine Greening, wants to make the country's aid-giving more transparent. This should make it more effective. But Ms Greening's efforts may also end up embarrassing both the department and the recipients of its aid. In a manifesto published in the Guardian, Ms Greening outlined her plans for the agency. The transparency requirement, which will be phased in over an unspecified time period, appears to mean that NGOs, private contractors and possibly even governments that receive DfID funds would have to publicly disclose how they spend the money.
Transparency · Effectiveness · Bond. Manifesto: Open for Change. Open Development Explained. Huge boost for aid effectiveness as groundbreaking transparency initiative gains momentum. 22 Apr 2013 A girl taking a computer lesson in a makeshift classroom in Borghaso village, Bamyan province, Afghanistan.
Open data allows more transparency in reporting aid to countries like Afghanistan, where in 2012 UNDP ran 35 projects with a total budget of US $818 million. (Photo: Joel van Houdt/UNDP) London – More than 130 organizations are now publishing their data to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), an open data platform that gives a comprehensive and comparable picture of aid flows in order to improve accountability and impact. Germany is the latest country to begin publishing its data in line with the IATI common standard, with Russia signalling its intention to join. Meanwhile IATI’s membership has grown to include 37 donor signatories who together represent 75 percent of global official development finance.
“IATI has come a long way and this progress is to be commended," Ms. OCHA on open humanitarianism. The Global Fund Should Take Transparency to Another Level. By Robert Bourgoing When I joined the Global Fund in 2003, my main responsibility, as the Manager of Online Communications, was to help the organisation deliver on its commitment to transparency.
One of the conditions set forth by donors was the ability to trace every granted dollar to make aid recipients accountable for how it would be spent. This meant, among other things, developing and maintaining a website that quickly became a central repository of all Global Fund data and information. We were praised for the unprecedented level of openness that this made possible.
But over time, I realised that something was (and still is) missing. If you Google “Global Fund” + AIDS for news stories, the overwhelming majority of results are articles that are reactive (i.e. based on official announcements, press releases and conferences) or that make reference to the Fund only indirectly or anecdotally.
The Fund’s website should be an extraordinary tool to get the facts right on those questions. Aid Transparency. Data Visualisations. World Bank Dataviz. FixMyStreet. UN panel urges 'data revolution' for development goals. [PARIS] A 'data revolution' must underpin the new set of global development goals to help monitor their progress and ensure the world's poorest get the support they need, according to a report by a UN panel of eminent people, headed by the UK prime minister and the presidents of Indonesia and Liberia.
Integrating technology that can collect up-to-date development data with national and international statistics communities will allow sustainable development practitioners to better track advances, integrate evidence into decision-making and provide more transparency, concludes the report by the UN High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which was released last week (30 May) in New York, United States. To deliver on post-2015 goals, we need a data revolution in budgets too.
Open Government Ireland. Open Government video. Open Development Explained.