Development Initiatives
  • Our work
    • Poverty
      • Citizen-generated data
      • The P20 Initiative: data to leave no one behind
    • More on poverty
    • Resources
      • Investments to End Poverty
      • International Aid Transparency Initiative
    • More on resources
    • Data use
      • Data Support Service in Kenya and Uganda
      • Development Data Hub
    • More on data use
    • Humanitarian
      • Global humanitarian assistance report 2018
      • Monitoring the Grand Bargain commitment on transparency
    • More on humanitarian
  • Development Data Hub
  • News
  • Events
  • Blogs
    • Latest data blogs
      • What does new World Bank data tell us about progress on poverty?
      • The needs of Kenyans by county: exploring the latest poverty data
      • The latest trends in UK aid spending on nutrition
      • See latest data blogs
    • Latest comment blogs
      • UN appeals: What does underfunding really mean?
      • How can blended financing help the world’s poorest?
      • Development cooperation for improved data
      • See latest comment blogs
    • Latest innovation blogs
      • Exploring concepts and practices to increase data use: A short learning paper
      • What are the principles of joined-up data?
      • Opinion: The case for metadata
      • See latest innovation blogs
  • Publications
    • Latest publications
      • Underfunded appeals: Understanding the consequences, improving the system
      • Final ODA data for 2017 – persistent trends raise concerns
      • Filling the gaps in current global poverty data estimates
      • See all publications
    • Publication formats
      • Reports
      • Briefings
      • Factsheets
  • Media
    • Media
      • As the experts on data about poverty and resources, we can help journalists with a wide range of reliable statistics and evidence for articles that relate to our areas of work.
    • Latest press releases
      • Launch: Investments to End Poverty 2018
      • What do the 2018/2019 national budget estimates mean for Kenya's poorest households?
      • Development Initiatives named new host of the Global Nutrition Report
      • See all press releases
    • Useful links
      • Briefings
      • Data blog
      • Factsheets
  • About
    • About us
      • Our story
      • Our work
      • Our consultancy services
      • Our team
      • Finances — being transparent
      • Open DI — Publishing to IATI
      • Contact us
    • Working with us
      • Working for us
      • Vacancies
      • Partnerships

Searching Site...

The IATI TAG meeting: two big 2014 priorities

Data use

Event


As the technical lead of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), DI’s spent quite a bit of time preparing for the IATI TAG (actually, that may be an understatement- it’s been a LOT of time). This is the IATI Technical Advisory Group meeting this January; for those who don’t know, the TAG meeting is an opportunity for people interested in both using and producing IATI data, from all over the world, to exchange information, ideas, and contribute to the development of the standard. It’s a great opportunity for those of us working on IATI to listen to the views of both data users and producers, find out about technical challenges and solutions, and take stock of the bigger picture.

This year’s TAG (as a quick look at the attendee list shows) includes not just representatives of donor government and multilaterals who are publishing, but private foundations, developing country governments, and NGOs/CSOs –so we’re looking forward to some really useful dialogue.

DI’s IATI team has two big priorities, both at the TAG and for 2014:

  1. Making open data useful and meaningful for users in developing countries

How can we support data users in developing countries to access, use and understand information, to help open data have more impact in developing countries? The TAG sees us kick off our joint project with Open Knowledge Foundation: the Open Data Toolkit, which aims to develop a hub for resources and practical support on how to use open data, including IATI data. We’re also giving a practical demonstration of the IATI datastore on Thursday (if you can’t make it to the TAG, here’s our blog on the datastore to give you a flavour). We’re trying to get feedback from as many TAG attendees as possible about what they want to use IATI data for, and how it could be improved. And we will be talking about improving data quality, of course.

But we have bigger, broader questions we want to get your thoughts on:

–          How can we support and enable implementation of common data standards by other open data initiatives?

–          How can we “join up data” to create more meaningful information for developing country stakeholders?

The real benefit to be gained from IATI data will come when it can be dynamically linked to a range of other data sources – such as socio-economic indicators, national and sub-national government budgets, and other resource flows.  Aid data only becomes meaningful, useful information for those within developing countries, if it can be brought alongside data on other resource inflows -“joined up” to build a clear picture of the real world.  DI has been advocating for better data on other resources, based on our wider research and analysis of resource flows into developing countries and our work in East Africa and Nepal with partners.

DI training for CSO representatives on use of open data, Kenya, 2013

DI training for CSO representatives on use of open data, Kenya, 2013

We also recently launched a pilot project in Uganda, which will be exploring the realities of joining up resource data at district level. And lastly we’ve been exploring the potential for common data standards to be developed across a range of global information systems, contributing what we’ve learned from developing the IATI standard to the ongoing discussions.  At the TAG, we’ll be inviting ideas from others on developing common approaches to a range of code and classification challenges for the “joined up data” initiative.

2.     Supporting different development actors to easily publish more, and better, information

The IATI standard needs to adapt and move forward, if it’s to serve the broad range of development actors operating today and build real transparency across all resources. We’re taking part in discussions about:

  • Improving the standard for reporting of humanitarian aid. This follows from our recent workshop with our colleagues at DI’s Global Humanitarian Assistance programme, the FTS and UNOCHA , with the objective of producing recommendations for adaptation of the IATI standard for humanitarian financing.
  • Adapting the standard to make it useful for different publishers, such as implementing agencies, and different funding models and levels
  • Support for NGOs and CSOs to publish to IATI. We’ve been working with Bond in the UK on this and will be bringing a guide to publishing out soon. For more on this, talk to Joni or Wendy.

Who are we? DI’s IATI team at the TAG

Get in touch with us! This year, you’ll find:

Bill Anderson, IATI Technical Lead

Joni Hillman, Aid Transparency Programme Manager

Wendy Rogers, IATI Support Analyst

Matt Bartlett, Programme Coordinator

Ben Webb, Consultant

Steven Flower, Consultant

(and not in Montreal, but no less important, our Kenya-based Technical Analyst Steve Kenei, who supports NGOs to publish…)

Latest articles

From Data use

Filling the gaps in current global poverty data estimates

Development cooperation for improved data

Five key points from Africa Statistics Week in Uganda

New pneumonia data published on the Development Data Hub

New edition of Development Data Hub launched

How can data really be transformative?

Related topics

  • Empowerment through information 30
  • Open data 69
See all topics

Sections

Data blog Publications Events Working with us

Quick links

Contact us Topics Our consultancy services Open DI — publishing to IATI

Newsletter

Sign up for the Development Initiatives newsletter to receive regular news and updates from DI.

Creative Commons

This site's content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

© Development Initiatives 2018. Development Initiatives is the trading name of Development Initiatives Poverty Research Ltd, registered in England and Wales, Company No. 06368740;
DI International Ltd, registered in England and Wales, Company No. 5802543, Registered Address: North Quay House, Quay Side, Temple Back, Bristol, BS1 6FL, UK; and Development Initiatives Poverty Research America Inc. (a 501(C)3 company registered in the state of Delaware with the registration number 5737757), Registered Address: 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, New Castle County, Delaware 19801. View our privacy policy. View our Modern slavery and human trafficking statement.