Open Data Services is a dedicated member of IATI and brings a wealth of industry best-practice in delivering other open data standards.
The Chair of IATI’s Governing Board, Henry Asor Nkang, from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Government of Nigeria, introducing IATI’s new IATI Secretariat arrangements
Open Data Services is the new technology delivery partner for the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) — a global data initiative to improve the transparency of development and humanitarian resources and their results to address poverty and crises.
Since 2008, IATI has played a vital role helping organisations to publish open data about their spending and projects to the IATI Standard. By using this data, governments, international organisations, foundations, charities and individuals can better understand how development and humanitarian resources flow around the world and the outcomes they deliver. In turn, this data can help them to make better decisions.
We’re incredibly proud to be working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) to build on the work the IATI Secretariat and community has delivered over the past 10 years.
Our co-operative was established in 2015 by four freelancers working to support the IATI Standard. From our experience, we’ve seen how IATI has always been at the forefront of global data initiatives working to increase transparency and accountability.
While IATI has made huge strides getting organisations to publish and use data, we see a need to further develop an ecosystem that can help network and untangle the interconnected world of development cooperation and humanitarian assistance.
The complex problems IATI is trying to solve need approaches that bring together people, policy and technology. At Open Data Services, we pride ourselves on creating data ecosystems that are grounded in the real world, and embedded in a solid grasp of the problems our partners are trying to solve — and we can’t do that alone.
From day one, we are committed to delivering IATI’s Strategic Plan 2020–2025. At the same time, this is an opportunity for the IATI community to form strategic goals to take us to 2030. To help facilitate that, we’ll work with the wide variety of organisations and stakeholders that support IATI. We know this process will focus on how the initiative supports its communities by developing standards, tools, services and guidance.
We’re also mindful of the origins of the initiative that focused on using data for better coordination, and hope the community will actively remind us of this goal. We’ll work hard to deliver a service that’s brokered through transparent work plans, community advice and participation.
Finally, we’d like to thank the organisations that have helped IATI get this far — particularly Development Initiatives in their incubation and stewardship of the initiative, and their excellent cooperation in the recent transition period.
What comes next
The IATI Secretariat has committed to five key principles:
-
Represent IATI’s core values of transparency and accountability through its actions
-
Deliver the strategic priorities of the Governing Board and IATI members, and uphold IATI’s governance mechanisms
-
Facilitate the voice of IATI’s community and learn from the wide range of experiences of IATI data publishers and users
-
Present robust analysis and evidence to inform discussions and decision-making within the initiative
-
Deliver and maintain high-quality tools and services, using technical expertise and rigour to meet data needs of development and humanitarian communities
Our goal as technology delivery partner is to work with UNDP, UNOPS and most importantly the IATI community to map out how we can make this vision a reality. We look forward to working with the Secretariat to ensure IATI continues to build on its momentum to deliver transparent, high quality information that is useful, usable and used.
For more information please contact the IATI Secretariat at support@iatistandard.org.