Prague, 5 October 2011

(by Ton Zijlstra)

Tuesday a conference took place in Prague on transparency in aid and development. IATI is the international aid transparency initiative that is working to make data on aid funding available.

What is IATI?

IATI provides a technical standard to format the data so that it can be published in reusable ways. There are currently 21 signatories. Apart from international organizations such as the World Bank and UN agencies, this includes the European countries Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. France is an observer. Also 22 partner countries, those that are recipient to aid from donor countries, have endorsed IATI.

The IATI data standard was agreed in February 2011, coinciding with the release of data by the UK. The Hewlett Foundation (April), World Bank (May) published their data, and just this week UNOPS followed. Of the European country signatories the UK published in January, and the Netherlands published in September. All released data can be found in the IATI registry.

In November a high level conference is taking place in Busan on international aid effectiveness, in which next steps for IATI will be discussed. The significant progress that was made in the past months is a good way to further the discussion there.

IATI, a unique open data initiative

Currently IATI is unique as a data transparency project because it aims to 'vertically' integrate the entire development aid chain. Donor countries open up their data, as well as the NGO's that use the donor money in projects, as well as receiving countries, and civic organizations there. The objective is to increase efficiency and effectivity of international aid. At this point receiving countries often don't know where and on what aid money is being spend by NGO's, which makes it hard to balance it with their own initiatives and spending. Likewise donor countries have little insight in actual impact of their aid.

IATI in the four Visegrad Countries

OpenAid has organized several workshops and conferences to raise awareness for IATI, in Berlin, Paris and now this week in Prague, together with local organizations, to help create momentum in the run-up to the Busan conference in November. Representatives from parliaments, government bodies and NGO's from the four Visegrad countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) came together to discuss IATI, it's use and possible effects, and possible obstacles to getting data published.

The program was as follows:

The potential of IATI for aid effectiveness

• Owen Barder (CGD): The relevance of aid transparency and IATI for aid effectiveness
• John Adams (DFID UK): Implementing IATI in an government agency. The experience of DFID.
• Rolf Kleef (Nicover/Partos): Implementing IATI in Dutch NGOs
• Alex Gerbrandji (EC): The position of the European Commission on IATI.

Examples for aid transparency at partner country level

• Anna Lauridsen (Development Gateways, USA): Improving coordination and development planning through aid transparency
• Dr. Fola Yahaya (Transparent Aid, Nigeria): Feedback processes and aid transparency

Beyond aid: open data is coming

• Ton Zijlstra (European Public Sector Information Network): Introduction to open data in the public sector, trends at the European level, political, administrative and economic value, costs and benefits.
• Petra Reszkető (Budapest Institute): two examples of transparency with data in Hungary.

V4 Aid Transparency

• Mark Brough (PublishWhatYouFund): Presentation of aid transparency of the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) and discussion.
• Panel discussion with decision makers from V4 countries
• Closing remarks (Ministry Foreign Affairs) Open data as the next step of the aid transparency agenda

The ePSIplatform has supported this event both to raise awareness on open data in general, as well as to extend the community network around PSI re-use and open data.