This consultation closed on March 1st, 2019 and the discussions are no longer accepting comments. If you would like to contact IATI, please email [email protected] Many thanks to all those who took the time to comment on the discussions. Summaries of the discussions below will be available below on Friday 8th of March, 2019. We thank all our Moderators for facilitating the discussion and synthesising the outcomes. From the 4th to 18th of March, IATI will hold a survey on data use as the next phase of the consultation to develop the IATI Strategic Plan. To learn more about IATI, visit iatistandard.org. |
With IATI recently celebrating its ten-year anniversary, this online consultation is an opportunity to spark dialogue around essential priorities for the initiative’s next three years. Anticipating the next generation of partnership and data needs, your responses will help IATI to ensure it responds to the rapidly-evolving development finance, open data and transparency agendas, to increase the use of development cooperation data.
You may wish to read through two background documents prepared for this consultation (an external and internal scanning paper). These papers examine the current international cooperation and open data landscape, as well as IATI’s progress and achievements since its inception in 2008, and may be useful tools to inform your participation in the consultation.
Please feel free to comment in as many threads, and respond to as many or as few questions, as you like. Though the consultation will largely be hosted in English, comments in French and Spanish are also welcomed. You may also submit contributions to [email protected] to be posted on your behalf, should you encounter any connectivity issues.
1. How could information reported through IATI respond better to partner country needs for relevant and easily-useable data that can be leveraged for national development planning processes, and foster development partner accountability at the same time?
2. Given the evolving development cooperation landscape, what new directions do you foresee for the IATI Standard over the next 3-5 years?
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Considering Strategic Directions for Development Cooperation Data and Standards
The forum on “Considering Strategic Directions for Development Cooperation Data and Standards” generated wide-ranging discussions. From a grounded analysis, five general themes have been identified, and are described below, relating to (1) maintaining focus; (2) supporting use of data; (3) standard development and simplification; (4) standard documentation; (5) positioning in relation to other standards.
(1) Staying the course: delivering on original commitments
Over the last decade IATI has substantially expanded the quantity and detail of available machine-readable data on the volume, allocation and results of development expenditure. Yet there is a widespread perception that IATI is still not delivering all the information that aid recipient governments need, nor is the data being adequately used to support development co-operation and co-ordination.
There is a strong view that IATI should not lose sight of the original Accra commitments, and the primacy of partner country governments as data users. This needs action on three fronts:
Sticking to the original commitments does not mean ignoring the changing landscape of aid. There was support for a broad view of aid and development cooperation, taking into account humanitarian, climate finance and south-south co-operation. Extending to cover flows which look very different (Foreign Direct Investment, Remittances) did not receive support, although important questions were raised about the need for IATI to critically examine its support for describing loans, and supporting debt management. Understanding how IATI fits into, and aligns with, ‘Total Official Support for Sustainable Development’ (TOSSD) measurement was raised by one contributor as a crucial area for the future.
(2) Taking IATI to the people
The design of IATI was based on a ‘publish once, use everywhere’ idea. This remains relevant, with contributors describing a range of important uses of IATI, from re-packaging data for humanitarian actors and placing it alongside their existing operational data sources, through to importing data into AIMS systems, or using it in innovative third-party tools like AidHedge. However, the idea of ‘publish and they will come’ has proven false. Getting IATI data into use at country level, or taken up by third-party developers, requires active outreach and engagement, and sustained funding beyond one-off money for pilots. Whilst activity might be carried out by partners, IATI should be more active in fostering and supporting the partnerships that can get data to where it is needed, in the format and level of detail it is needed in.
Contributors described the need to raise awareness of IATI data, and to scale up capacity building: not just through expensive in-person trainings (which, when used, should be delivered by suitably skilled trainers), but also through online resources such as videos and high quality documentation. Capacity building should respond to user needs: including by teaching about IATI alongside other data sources, and working with Universities, civil society and other institutions. Supporting publishers to create awareness of IATI in their own country offices, and engaging country offices more with improving IATI data was also described as a key way to build trust in IATI data.
For country use, IATI data also needs to be available in local languages. It is not currently clear whether or not machine-translation can meet this need. One respondent also noted the importance of creating feedback loops, so that grass-roots civil society groups can engage with IATI and feedback information on projects, rather than just having ‘read-only’ access to data.
Across a number of comments, the importance of better understanding user need was underscored. IATI could strengthen its capacity to follow through on user-centred design approaches.
(3) Keeping it simple: fitting IATI to different communities of practice
There was a vibrant conversation on the question of important data fields, who they are important for, and who is best placed to provide the information.
By recognising that there are multiple use-cases for IATI, and multiple kinds of publishers (both by constituency, size and position in the aid distribution chain), it may be possible to describe a minimal core of IATI data, and then a range of different sets of fields required by different communities of practice. Testing whether fields are widely used could lead to more fields being removed from the standard, and to publishers being able to identify the fields they should most focus on.
However, views were mixed on whether IATI can realistically move towards a simpler core standard: some saw the 10-year anniversary as the ideal opportunity for a major refactor/rewrite. Others suggested the current governance process tends to prioritise growth, but not rationalisation of the standard. One institutional donor noted that frequent changes to the standard are problematic for both big and small organisations.
Discussions of geo-data, and an on/off budget field, illustrated the importance of working out who should provide certain data, and of investing in documentation of data fields. For example, one comment suggested local NGOs in the aid delivery chain are much better placed than large bilateral donors to produce geolocation data, whilst they may have no information on whether financial flows should be counted as ODA or not. Supporting local co-ordination may not require financial information, but may need an emphasise fields on that describe the who, what and why of development assistance in a particular country.
Improving the simplicity of the standard for publishers and users may require the core IATI community to spend more time on standard development and governance, and to explore new technical approaches and architectures. One comment suggested that IATI could support ‘confirmation’ of data between delivery chain actors, noting that “when data is mutually confirmed, by the immediate partners, we have no reason to question the quality.”
(4) Better documentation can speak volumes
A number of responses pointed to the importance of IATI Standard Documentation, and the need to invest more time in making sure documentation is complete, comprehensive, bug-free, and accessible.
In a number cases the meaning of an IATI data field can only be understood when their is an accompanying documented business logic. However, at times, guidance or documentation promised in the upgrade process has not been delivered. Documenting best practices, based on learning from existing publishers, could add substantial value.
Documentation is not just about technical definitions: it is also a way of helping different practitioners speak using ‘common language’, recognising that when we bring together country partners, technical experts, government donors and NGOs, we need to make sure we have shared understanding of key concepts.
It may be useful to explore new methods, including face-to-face workshop sessions, and task-and-finish working groups, in order to accelerate the completion of the guidance that is needed. Good documentation is more than text, and involves examples, diagrams and learning materials.
(5) Joined up standards
There were relatively few contributions relating to where IATI sits alongside other standards, although one response noted the importance of positioning IATI as an open data initiative, and avoiding an 'IATI silo’. The need for continued alignment with statistical standards (DAC/TOSSD) was raised, and one comment noted the value of having comprehensive mapping to partner country data on budgets, expenditure and reporting. In considering the Humanitarian sector, an understanding of the existing standards that exist can help IATI add value rather than duplicate existing work.
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