Did you make a new year’s resolution? Was it to improve the transparency of your organisation’s work?
Transparency should be at the heart of everything we do in the international development and humanitarian sector. Transparency matters for civil society across the world. Sharing the inputs, activities and results of aid programmes helps to make the sector more accessible for both tax payers in donor countries and citizens of the countries where the money is spent.
Improving transparency is crucial in our journey towards the Global Goals. Transparency enables donors to avoid duplication, co-ordinate funding efforts and evidence the work of governments towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 2020 marks the ‘Decade of Delivery’ commencing the countdown to 2030, with the United Nations calling for global co-ordination to achieve the ambitious targets within the SDGs by 2030. Transparency matters now more than ever.
One way that organisations can improve their transparency is by publishing to International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). IATI is an open data standard used by international development and humanitarian projects. Publishing project data online makes the results of projects accessible to the public and press.
There are a number of exciting new digital tools, resources and reports which can help you improve your organisation’s transparency. Here is a roundup of transparency and IATI news to help you keep your new year’s resolution:
New IATI tools, integrations and resources
- IATI now has a dashboard visualising data files, with over 1,000 publishers and nearly 1 million activities.
- The new IATI Public Validator launched at the end of 2019 helps you to check your own IATI files and see whether they are compliant with the standard.
- A new Code for IATI website launched in 2020 brings together tools and techniques for members of the IATI community to use and share (including lists of useful language translation and foreign currency conversion tools!)
- Microsoft Tech for Social Impact have created an IATI extension, which allows organisations using the non-profit common data model to easily report their data.
- IATI held two webinars explaining guidance on reporting SDG data to the standard near the end of 2019, you can re-watch the webinars online.
Recent blogs, reports and publications about transparency
- Devex published an article at the end of January ‘what to watch in development finance’ noting the rise in demand for transparency around development finance and citing Publish What you Fund’s new Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) Transparency Initiative.
- UNDP wrote an interesting blog about their continued commitment to greater effectiveness, transparency and accountability.
- Whilst we wait for Publish what you Fund to complete the 2020 Aid Transparency Index assessing 47 major aid donors, you can read the transparency ratings for the UK government departments published in January 2020.
- Accountability Counsel launched a new database for human rights and environment grievances at the end of 2019. Read about their new tool and how it aims to address demands for a comprehensive Independent Accountability Mechanism for complaints in their blog.
Interested in looking at our members’ activities using IATI data?
25 of our network members currently publish their data to the open standard. You can view our members’ profiles on the visualisation platform d-portal to find about their funding, activities and results: ActionAid, British Red Cross, CBM UK, Christian Aid, Christian Engineers in Development, EMMS International, Feed the Minds, Habitat for Humanity, IOD PARC, Islamic Relief, Link Community Development International, Mary’s Meals, Mercy Corps, Opportunity International, Oxfam Scotland, Save the Children, SCIAF, Sense Scotland, Tearfund, The HALO Trust, The Open University, UNICEF, VSO International, Water Witness International and WaterAid .
Do you need more support on the topic of transparency? Do you have questions about IATI? Email the Effectiveness & Learning team and read our resource list about transparency and IATI.