A talk I held at the Responsible Data in Humanitarian Response meeting in The Hague, February 24-25 2015, talking about 'responsible data' in the International Aid Transparency Initiative process, including privacy concerns with publishing aid data, and ways of managing the process. More details: http://www.responsible-data.org/

1. LEARNING FROMTHE IATI
PROCESS
By Zara Rahman

2. RESPONSIBLE IATI?
• Provides interoperable, comparable data
• Increases transparency / accountability
• High-level political buy in to need for better data
• Easier to see which areas are receiving aid

3. PROCESS CHALLENGES
• Integrating with (or not) already-established systems
• Data quality
• Labour-intensive process
• Balance between publishing and privacy
• Multistakeholder process

4. How is IATI governed?

5. WAYS FORWARD
• Better data from donors = incentive for partner countries
to invest
• Better (low-cost) tech from software suppliers
• Business case for donors for automation
• Take existing systems into account
• Make more fields ‘mandatory’

6. USING DATA CHALLENGES
• Poor quality of data
• Not very user friendly interfaces
• Not comprehensive

7. Why do we need IATI?
Different
formats
Hard to find Not current
Not
comprehensive
Inconsistent In multiple
locations
Not forward
looking
Not comparable
There’s lots of information available but it’s...

8. WAYS FORWARD
• Internal + external usage of IATI data (multi-use)
• Better data quality (as discussed)
• Showcase examples of use

9. http://d-portal.org
Build user-facing tools

10. http://support.iatistandard.org
Online community for support

11. PRIVACY CONCERNS
• Exclusions
• ‘exclusion policy’
• ask the partner org BEFORE publishing
• make ‘no negative implications’ clear
• automated way of excluding activities

12. PRIVACY CONCERNS
• Geocoding:
• Be aware of risks
• (eg. not in areas where malicious actors might
actively oppose published activities)
• If unsure: ask local organisation first.

13. PRIVACY CONCERNS
Transparency… for whom?

14. DFID's Open Data Strategy
PRIVACY CONCERNS
We want to be able
to trace the flow of aid from
donor to implementation… this will
provide clear visibility to
taxpayers in the UK

15. CONCLUSION
Responsible publication
• Incentives (both donor + partner org)
• Awareness of existing systems
• Awareness of potential risks - if not sure…
• Ask, ask again, ask again!

16. mail@zararah.net
@zararah
Thank you!