1. Working with IATI Presentation to Open Data for Development Camp Amsterdam, 12th May 2011

2. The aid revolution starts with <?xml?> Presentation to Open Data for Development Camp Amsterdam, 12th May 2011

3. What’s the problem?

4. Publish many times, use rarely

5. Publish Once, Use Often

6. The problem Lots of information in lots of different places Of varying quality... Different formats / classifications; not compatible / comparable Often not current or forward looking

7. Afghanistan Of the $32 billion pledged by the US for 2001-2008, less than 20 percent ($6 billion) is recorded in the government’s aid database. That means Afghans have no way of knowing what’s happening with the other $26 billion the US has been spending in their country.

8. Towards a common standard It’s not a silver bullet – but it’s hard to see how aid effectiveness can be delivered without aid transparency Commitments under AAA and to deliver on PD Key vehicle: International Aid Transparency Initiative Donor-led initiative to publish information in a standard, comparable format 8 EU Member States are signatories to IATI

9. The solution: open data and standards Use standard format for publishing raw aid information (IATI-XML) Publish it to your website Register this data with the IATI Registry www.iatiregistry.org Multiple infomediaries can access and use this information to meet specific stakeholder needs

10. Set up in Accra, Ghana in September 2008 19 Signatories African Development Bank, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Commission, United Nations Development Programme, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, Hewlett Foundation Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK 2 Observers France, US

11. 19 developing countries have endorsed IATI Sierra Leone Liberia Bangladesh Honduras Republic of Congo Democratic Republic of Congo Ghana Rwanda Indonesia Nepal Viet Nam Papua New Guinea Moldova Montenegro Colombia Burkina Faso Malawi The Dominican Republic Syria

12. Where we’re at now 9th February – Standard agreed 28th January – DFID published all its projects to IATI 1st April – Hewlett Foundation published all its projects to IATI

13. A project in DFID’s project-level database

14. The same DFID project in the IATI XML format

15. Hewlett Foundation’s IATI data

16. How are the donors doing? AidWatch Report: aid transparency Sneak peak at the results so far, for 25 European donors Full report launched 19th May 11am, Brussels

17. Embargoed until 19th May

18. Embargoed until 19th May

19. Netherlands scores much better in IATI (it publishes more information) 12 Fields in internal database which are similar to IATI 5 Fields mapped across to IATI by AKVO 2 Fields added by AKVO by looking in other documents to enhance IATI data Netherlands moves from 17th to 2nd if it publishes this data for all its projects

20. Challenges for IATI Still some questions unanswered Recipient budget identifier field still TBD: so not yet linked to recipient country budgets. Voluntary... Members and observers represent over 2/3 of all ODA, but a lot of aid left out! How many signatories will implement? Optional components – not all fields are compulsory, so how many will be used?

21. Alternatives to IATI OECD’s CRS / CRS ++ High quality statistics; data verified by OECD Not detailed enough; not timely (latest is 2009) EC’s TR-AID Should be IATI compatible, but not clear yet Bilateral initiatives

22. What’s next? More donors publishing their data to IATI – probably at least another 6 before November/December (at HLF4) IATI standard starts to get data fed through it; let’s see how it works People start to use IATI data!

23. Aid and domestic spending in Uganda

25. Questions Sampled: for 1 country and 1 project Three parts: Organisation-level information Country-level information Activity (or project)-level information For each piece of info: Is it published? (Y/N) systematically for all recipients/projects all of the time just for some recipients/projects some of the time? If you don’t publish it, do you collect it? Evidence: show where this information is (the URL)

26. Organisation-level questions Does this donor publish aid allocation policies and procedures? Does this donor publish its procurement procedures? Does this donor publish the total development budget for the next three years, as submitted to parliament? Does this donor publish their annual forward planning budget for assistance for the next three years?

27. Country-level questions Choose your donor’s biggest recipient country (e.g., India). Then answer these questions: Does this donor publish the country strategy paper for India? Does this donor publish forward planning budget or documents for the institutions they fund in India for the next three years? Does this donor publish its annual audit of its aid programmes in India?

28. Activity-level questions Activity-level aid information This is the specific detail about aid flows, needed for informed decisions about where aid is / should be going This is the level needed for coordination, alignment, results/evaluation, ownership, and esp. accountability E.g. Is it good use of Polish aid to build a school in Gikongoro or Butare? USAID is already building a school in Gikongoro. The Rwandan government can support the ongoing cost of only one school – in Butare or Gikongoro.

29. Proposed Process Choose (or find) a current activity (or a “project”) in the chosen recipient country Answer as many questions as you can find info on NB not finding info is data! Then send it to your donor agency NB: could just send it all straight to the donor, but in our experience asking them to “check/correct” gets best results

30. Activity-level questions Does this donor publish which organisation implements the activity? Needed for accountability; performance evaluation Does this donor publish the current status of the aid activity? Is it still ongoing? Is it supposed to be completed?

31. The Tracker Online, frequently updated tool – in real time. A page per country showing the relative performance of donors across Europe, and then across the world. Will allow partners to monitor and encourage progress up to Higher Level Forum 4 in Busan. We’re consulting on the methodology to aggregate the data up and would welcome feedback.