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Posts Tagged ‘USAID’

Developing and operationalizing Responsible Data Policies

Posted in data, development, ICT4D, M&E Tech, MERL Tech, mobile and technology, monitoring, monitoring and evaluation, privacy, risk, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 31, 2016| 2 Comments »

This post was written with input from Maliha Khan, Independent Consultant; Emily Tomkys, Oxfam GB; Siobhan Green, Sonjara and Zara Rahman, The Engine Room.

A friend reminded me earlier this month at the MERL Tech Conference that a few years ago when we brought up the need for greater attention to privacy, security and ethics when using ICTs and digital data in humanitarian and development contexts, people pointed us to Tor, encryption and specialized apps. “No, no, that’s not what we mean!” we kept saying. “This is bigger. It needs to be holistic. It’s not just more tools and tech.”

So, even if as a sector we are still struggling to understand and address all the different elements of what’s now referred to as “Responsible Data” (thanks to the great work of the Engine Room and key partners), at least we’ve come a long way towards framing and defining the areas we need to tackle. We understand the increasing urgency of the issue that the volume of data in the world is increasing exponentially and the data in our sector is becoming more and more digitalized.

This year’s MERL Tech included several sessions on Responsible Data, including Responsible Data Policies, the Human Element of the Data Cycle, The Changing Nature of Informed Consent, Remote Monitoring in Fragile Environments and plenary talks that mentioned ethics, privacy and consent as integral pieces of any MERL Tech effort.

The session on Responsible Data Policies was a space to share with participants why, how, and what policies some organizations have put in place in an attempt to be more responsible. The presenters spoke about the different elements and processes their organizations have followed, and the reasoning behind the creation of these policies. They spoke about early results from the policies, though it is still early days when it comes to implementing them.

What do we mean by Responsible Data?

Responsible data is about more than just privacy or encryption. It’s a wider concept that includes attention to the data cycle at every step, and puts the rights of people reflected in the data first:

  • Clear planning and purposeful collection and use of data with the aim of improving humanitarian and development approaches and results for those we work with and for
  • Responsible treatment of the data and respectful and ethical engagement with people we collect data from, including privacy and security of data and careful attention to consent processes and/or duty of care
  • Clarity on data sharing – what data, from whom and with whom and under what circumstances and conditions
  • Attention to transparency and accountability efforts in all directions (upwards, downwards and horizontally)
  • Responsible maintenance, retention or destruction of data.

Existing documentation and areas to explore

There is a huge bucket of concepts, frameworks, laws and policies that already exist in various other sectors and that can be used, adapted and built on to develop responsible approaches to data in development and humanitarian work. Some of these are in conflict with one another, however, and those conflicts need to be worked out or at least recognized if we are to move forward as a sector and/or in our own organizations.

Some areas to explore when developing a Responsible Data policy include:

  • An organization’s existing policies and practices (IT and equipment; downloading; storing of official information; confidentiality; monitoring, evaluation and research; data collection and storage for program administration, finance and audit purposes; consent and storage for digital images and communications; social media policies).
  • Local and global laws that relate to collection, storage, use and destruction of data, such as: Freedom of information acts (FOIA); consumer protection laws; data storage and transfer regulations; laws related to data collection from minors; privacy regulations such as the latest from the EU.
  • Donor grant requirements related to data privacy and open data, such as USAID’s Chapter 579 or International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) stipulations.

Experiences with Responsible Data Policies

At the MERL Tech Responsible Data Policy session, organizers and participants shared their experiences. The first step for everyone developing a policy was establishing wide agreement and buy-in for why their organizations should care about Responsible Data. This was done by developing Values and Principles that form the foundation for policies and guidance.

Oxfam’s Responsible Data policy has a focus on rights, since Oxfam is a rights-based organization. The organization’s existing values made it clear that ethical use and treatment of data was something the organization must consider to hold true to its ethos. It took around six months to get all of the global affiliates to agree on the Responsible Program Data policy, a quick turnaround compared to other globally agreed documents because all the global executive directors recognized that this policy was critical. A core point for Oxfam was the belief that digital identities and access will become increasingly important for inclusion in the future, and so the organization did not want to stand in the way of people being counted and heard. However, it wanted to be sure that this was done in a way that balanced and took privacy and security into consideration.

The policy is a short document that is now in the process of operationalization in all the countries where Oxfam works. Because many of Oxfam’s affiliate headquarters reside in the European Union, it needs to consider the new EU regulations on data, which are extremely strict, for example, providing everyone with an option for withdrawing consent. This poses a challenge for development agencies who normally do not have the type of detailed databases on ‘beneficiaries’ as they do on private donors. Shifting thinking about ‘beneficiaries’ and treating them more as clients may be in order as one result of these new regulations. As Oxfam moves into implementation, challenges continue to arise. For example, data protection in Yemen is different than data protection in Haiti. Knowing all the national level laws and frameworks and mapping these out alongside donor requirements and internal policies is extremely complicated, and providing guidance to country staff is difficult given that each country has different laws.

Girl Effect’s policy has a focus on privacy, security and safety of adolescent girls, who are the core constituency of the organization. The policy became clearly necessary because although the organization had a strong girl safeguarding policy and practice, the effect of digital data had not previously been considered, and the number of programs that involve digital tools and data is increasing. The Girl Effect policy currently has four core chapters: privacy and security during design of a tool, service or platform; content considerations; partner vetting; and MEAL considerations. Girl Effect looks at not only the privacy and security elements, but also aims to spur thinking about potential risks and unintended consequences for girls who access and use digital tools, platforms and content. One core goal is to stimulate implementers to think through a series of questions that help them to identify risks. Another is to establish accountability for decisions around digital data.

The policy has been in process of implementation with one team for a year and will be updated and adapted as the organization learns. It has proven to have good uptake so far from team members and partners, and has become core to how the teams and the wider organization think about digital programming. Cost and time for implementation increase with the incorporation of stricter policies, however, and it is challenging to find a good balance between privacy and security, the ability to safely collect and use data to adapt and improve tools and platforms, and user friendliness/ease of use.

Catholic Relief Services has an existing set of eight organizational principles: Sacredness and Dignity of the human person; Rights and responsibilities; Social Nature of Humanity; The Common Good; Subsidiarity; Solidarity; Option for the Poor; Stewardship. It was a natural fit to see how these values that are already embedded in the organization could extend to the idea of Responsible Data. Data is an extension of the human person, therefore it should be afforded the same respect as the individual. The principle of ‘common good’ easily extends to responsible data sharing. The notion of subsidiarity says that decision-making should happen as close as possible to the place where the impact of the decision will be the strongest, and this is nicely linked with the idea of sharing data back with communities where CRS works and engaging them in decision-making. The option for the poor urges CRS to place a preferential value on privacy, security and safety of the data of the poor over the data demands of other entities.

The organization is at the initial phase of creating its Responsible Data Policy. The process includes the development of the values and principles, two country learning visits to understand the practices of country programs and their concerns about data, development of the policy, and a set of guidelines to support staff in following the policy.

USAID recently embarked on its process of developing practical Responsible Data guidance to pair with its efforts in the area of open data. (See ADS 579). More information will be available soon on this initiative.

Where are we now?

Though several organizations are moving towards the development of policies and guidelines, it was clear from the session that uncertainties are the order of the day, as Responsible Data is an ethical question, often relying on tradeoffs and decisions that are not hard and fast. Policies and guidelines generally aim to help implementers ask the right questions, sort through a range of possibilities and weigh potential risks and benefits.

Another critical aspect that was raised at the MERL Tech session was the financial and staff resources that can be required to be responsible about data. On the other hand, for those organizations receiving funds from the European Union or residing in the EU or the UK (where despite Brexit, organizations will likely need to comply with EU Privacy Regulations), the new regulations mean that NOT being responsible about data may result in hefty fines and potential legal action.

Going from policy to implementation is a challenge that involves both capacity strengthening in this new area as well as behavior change and a better understanding of emerging concepts and multiple legal frameworks. The nuances by country, organization and donor make the process difficult to get a handle on.

Because staff and management are already overburdened, the trick to developing and implementing Responsible Data Policies and Practice will be finding ways to strengthen staff capacity and to provide guidance in ways that do not feel overwhelmingly complex. Though each situation will be different, finding ongoing ways to share resources and experiences so that we can advance as a sector will be one key step for moving forward.

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Mobile technology and workforce development programs with girls and young women

Posted in development, education, girls, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mobile, mywd, TSNYC, wait... what?, youth workforce development, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 25, 2013| 3 Comments »

The March NYC Technology Salon offered an opportunity to discuss how mobile technology can transform workforce development and to hear how mobile is improving the reach and impact of existing initiatives working with girls and young women. Attendees also raised some of the acute, practical challenges and the deeper underlying issues that need to be overcome in order for girls and women to access and use mobile devices and to participate in workforce development programs and the labor market.

Conversation kicked off with comments from Kris Wiig (Samasource), Nancy Taggart (Education Development Center)  and Trina Das Gupta (former head of mWomen). The Salon was part of the Mobiles for Education Mobiles and Youth Workforce Development (mYWD) Working Group Learning Series, an initiative created in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation and USAID. The Salon was hosted at the offices of the Clinton Global Initiative.

The benefits of mobile vs stationary ICT for youth workforce development programs

Mobile holds a number of benefits over stationary ICT, including the feature of reaching people where they are because of the ubiquity of hand-held devices. Mobile is being used as both a primary tool in workforce development programming and as a complementary tool to enhance or reinforce content and interaction happening via other means such as web, face-to-face, and radio.

Reaching girls and women. Mobile can reach girls and young women with services and information they cannot normally get, helping them access the opportunities, skills, and information they need to better position them for work. Mobile job matching allows girls and young women to seek jobs without leaving the home. Micro-tasking (breaking up jobs into tiny tasks that can be done by a number of individuals, eg.,  via a mobile phone) offers a way for girls and young women from slum areas, those not able to work outside of the home, and those pulled out of difficult situations like sexual exploitation; to access entry-level work and gain experience that can help them quickly move to better jobs. Some 75% of women doing microtasking with Samasource move on to better jobs within 6 months, for example.

Getting geographically relevant information out to youth. Mobile can help spread information about opportunities to formerly unreached locations. In many places, jobs and scholarships exist, but they are promoted in places where youth do not see them. Mobile social networks can reach youth and connect them, based on their profiles and skill sets, to opportunities in their own geographical area, helping change the idea that youth have to move to the city in order to find work.

Strengthening soft and hard skills. Using mobile applications, gaming and quizzes, youth can work through career pathfinders in a fun way, find out what they like and what they are good at, and begin learning how to plan a career and what types of courses or preparation they need to achieve goals. They can also learn about savings and create savings plans for items they want to purchase, meanwhile making commitments to give up habits like smoking in order to put their limited resources towards other goals. Applications that reinforce basic literacy and numeracy, such as EDC’s Stepping Stone, help girls and young women strengthen the skills they need to move to a higher level of training or to access additional mobile-based information or engage in communications that help improve their livelihoods.

Lowering barriers to entry. Mobile offers a lower barrier to entry than more traditional ICTs. Mobile web has made it easier for many people to get online, especially in rural areas where people often have to be transported to centralized places in order to access desktop computers and broadband. Mobiles also require less electricity than desktop computers, a big plus in rural areas. One participant noted that an iPad costs only $400 vs a desktop that costs much more and requires more expertise and resources to set up and maintain. Tools available today make it easier for non-experts to create mobile applications. The challenge is getting over inertia and allowing kids to play and experiment.

Designing mobile workforce development programs with and for girls and young women

Even with all these benefits, however, mobile may not always be the best tool because access to information and content delivery does not resolve deeper gender-related issues. Salon attendees offered some insights on ways to make mYWD programs more inclusive of and adapted to the needs of girls and women.

Addressing underlying gender issues. Girls and young women may find a scholarship or a job via mobile but for various reasons, such as controlled mobility or cultural or resource restrictions, they may not be able to take advantage of it. When working with girls and women, underlying issues are central, for example, past trauma, self-esteem, self-doubt and the question “will I ever be good enough.” Organizations can talk this through with girls and women via a mobile phone or online chat, but in truth it’s a much a deeper issue than a cellphone can solve. Corollary and holistic programs are needed to respond to these broader issues in order to have real, in-depth and lasting impact.

Making mYWD programs accessible to girls and young women. Workforce development programs need to be designed in ways that fit the lives of the girls and women they aim to support. For example,  training needs to happen at a time when women are more able to participate, such as after breakfast and before lunch when the children are at school and the husband is not back yet. Child care may need to be provided. It’s also critical to understand the dynamics of husbands and mothers-in-law who often want to know what young women are doing at all times. Some women may be happy to conceal the fact that they are participating in training, but programs should help women and girls gauge their potential risks. Another strategy is working with husbands and men to generate buy-in so that girls and women can participate in different labor market-related activities. In some cases negative reactions from fathers and husbands deter girls and women from participating or cause them to drop out. Eg.: “I make more money and my husband takes it and he drinks more, and then he beats me more.” The many precise cultural and social issues around gender and mobile require more research. Talking with girls and young women about these barriers and ensuring programs take them into account is an important part of the design process.

Remembering that women and girls are often the last to own phones. GSMA research found that there is indeed a mobile gender gap. Though there may be a high level of mobile penetration at the household level, often it’s the husband, then the first-born son who get a phone, and only afterward that perhaps a daughter or a wife get one — and this scenario is in wealthier households where there are multiple devices. For most families in emerging economies, there is only one or possibly two phones per household, and women and girls only have access to the phone when the man of the house gives it to them. This does vary from country to country, but overall, women are less active and with less access to mobile devices. This is a critical gap if organizations wish to involve girls and young women in mobile-based programs. Knowing the audience, population and context and designing information and communication strategies and workforce development programs that use a variety of channels (traditional and new media as well as face-to-face) to reach girls and women can help avoid marginalizing or not reaching those without mobile access.

Finding the incentive base for men. In many emerging markets, work needs to be done to discover what might incentivize men to allow girls and women to access mobile phones and/or to participate in workforce development activities. Sometimes it is money, but not always. Men may not want women and daughters working or earning money. In Afghanistan, for example, the CEO of the mobile network operator would sit with the men in the households and discuss the idea of women and girls having mobile phones. As part of one program that trained women for work, transportation services were set up just for women. It is important to meet people where they are in terms of cultural barriers and not try to shift things too quickly or all at once or there can be serious backlash.

Encouraging girls and young women to enter high growth sectors. Age-old gender frameworks are still at play and many girls and young women are not interested in entering certain high growth sectors, such as technology. This is a worldwide hurdle in terms of positioning girls and young women for the new jobs being created in these sectors, not just something that happens in ‘developing’ countries. Some programs are reaching out specifically to girls and young women to teach them to code and to break down the idea that only boys and men are smart enough to do it. Encouraging girls and women to see the world by accessing Internet via the mobile web and connecting with other girls and women this way can also be hugely transformative. Communication and marketing can play a role in helping girls and women see the world as it could be, if there were gender parity, and planting a seed that helps girls and young women see the possibilities of their own impact in the world. Enabling girls and young women to create, not just consume content, can change the status quo.

Mobile as a complementary tool, not a replacement.  Mobile can resolve some information and communication aspects, however, in the case of girls and young women, resource-intensive services are often the most needed and the most important, and these cannot always be done via a device. Mentoring and networking, for example, have shown to be highly valued by girls and women. These need to be more than a quick check-in however; they should be strong, active and consistent relationships of support. Some organizations are doing interesting work with mentoring but even with the added benefits of mobile technology, efficient and cost-effective ways to support quality mentoring at scale have not been fully worked out yet.

Data and research

There is a dearth of data around how girls and women use mobiles. Research has been done in some contexts with women at the base of the pyramid, but in many cases it’s difficult to apply conclusions across contexts. Evidence on what works, what is sustainable, and what can effectively scale is missing.

Understanding the meaning of mobile for girls and women. There is a need for more research on women’s ownership and use of devices, and a better understanding of what these devices mean to girls and women in their daily lives, in their family dynamics and with regard to their purchasing habits. In one country, 40% of women interviewed said they didn’t like text messaging, but this may not carry over to other countries or to girls and younger women. Women in one survey in Uganda said they didn’t like borrowing a phone because it meant they would owe a favor to the woman they borrowed it from — this breaks with assumptions that mobiles are freely shared in communities and everyone can access them. In Papua New Guinea, women surveyed in a micro-tasking project said that what they most liked about having mobile access was not the work opportunity, it was being able to call and arrange dinner time with their husband so they would not be beaten if he came home early and it was not ready.

Gaps in gender and age disaggregated data. The huge gap in gender and age disaggregated data on mobile ownership and use is a huge impediment in terms of going to scale. Donor organizations and governments often ask, “Where is the data that shows me this works?” Using mobile for different programs is a big shift for most countries and organizations. It requires behavior change and large investments, and so decision-makers logically want to know if it works. Some organizations avoid working with government as it can slow down processes. Others argue that government buy-in and support are vital to achieving scale and sustainability and that government plays an important role in reducing tariffs and establishing regulations that favor mobile for development initiatives.

One discussant recommended: “Do your baseline. Track your data. Share your data. Share your failures. Collect gender and age disaggregated data.” Large research firms are starting to set up these data but they are for the most part proprietary and are not available to those working in development. Organizations like CGI could use their influence to encourage firms and companies to share some parts of their data. Going beyond micro-level pairing of people with jobs to the use of mobile data at scale to look at development trends could be hugely beneficial.

In summary, more needs to be done to better understand the intersecting areas of gender, mobile technology, and youth workforce development programming. Further reading and resources compiled to complement the Salon are available here.

The Technology Salon methodology was used for the session, including Chatham House Rule, therefore no attribution has been made in this summary post. Sign up here to receive notifications about upcoming Salons in New York, Nairobi, San Francisco, London and Washington, DC. 

Visit the Mobiles and Youth Workforce Development Working Group page and sign up to receive information on mYWD Learning Series Events and the upcoming mYWD Landscape Review, due out in July 2013.

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USAID’s freshly updat[a]ed sites

Posted in accountability, development, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, open data, open development, open government, smart aid, transparency, wait... what?, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2012| 2 Comments »

USAID has been busy lately with a redesign and roll-out of the new USAID.gov.

You can now access first-generation interactive maps at the country level for 40 missions (see screen capture below).

Screen capture from http://map.usaid.gov/ on July 5, 2012.

In addition, as part of the USAID evaluation policy that ‘sets ambitious standards for the quality and transparency of evaluation to demonstrate results, generate evidence to inform decisions, promote learning and ensure accountability’ the page that houses the Development Evaluation Clearinghouse (DEC) has been revamped. You can now search 50 years of international aid records, submit reports, and ‘get social’ by sharing, rating, tagging and blogging. Introduction videos are available to help you get started.

Not only is there better looking and more accessible information on-line, you can get two mobile applications (available for iPhone and iPad):

  • The DEC mobile app provides access to a subset of USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) documents (recent evaluations).
  • The Portfolio Map mobile app allows you to browse the USAID portfolio for a subset of the countries in which USAID is working, access general country overviews at a glance and get more detailed information as needed.

In other news, alongside their own new website, on June 25th, 2012, USAID together with the Department of State announced publication of USAID’s foreign assistance obligation and expenditure data for Fiscal Year 2009-2011 on the Foreign Assistance Dashboard.

As explained during the DC Technology Salon on ‘How will IATI impact international development,’ the Dashboard is the US Government’s main tool for improving foreign aid transparency. It will play a key role in US Government reporting of foreign assistance data to the international community, one of the measures agreed on when the US Government signed onto the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) in November 2011.

According to the June 25th press release, ‘the Dashboard also has budget planning data for the Department of State and USAID, as well as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s foreign assistance budget planning, obligation, and expenditure data.  Data on the site can be manually queried, filtered, and downloaded by users for further analysis.

The Dashboard is designed to allow a range of stakeholders, including U.S. citizens, civil society organizations, Congress, U.S. Government agencies, donors, and partner country governments; to examine, research, and track foreign assistance data in an accessible and easy-to-understand format. It aims to allow users to explore the impact of U.S. foreign assistance funding by country, sector, initiative, and agency by presenting data in a standard and user-friendly way.

According to USAID, ‘as the lead agency in implementing U.S. foreign assistance activities around the world, the launch of USAID obligation and expenditure data on the Foreign Assistance Dashboard represents a significant step forward in the U.S. Government’s efforts to make foreign assistance more transparent.’ (For additional discussion on this point, see the summary post from the aforementioned Technology Salon.)

The Dashboard is currently in an early stage of development. The site eventually plans for the incorporation of ‘budget, financial, program, and performance data in a standard form from all U.S. Government agencies receiving or implementing foreign assistance, humanitarian, and/or development funds.’ (See the table below for an idea of what is currently done and what is coming up.)

For more information about the Dashboard, see the Top Ten Things You Should Know page.

With all this information being made more accessible to everyone, it will be interesting to see if and how it’s used by different people and institutions for different purposes, especially in terms of improving coordination, program planning, transparency, accountability and aid effectiveness.

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Technology Salon in DC: How will IATI impact US-based development agencies?

Posted in accountability, development, disaster and emergencies, governance, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, open data, open development, open government, participation, politics, smart aid, technology salon, transparency, wait... what?, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2012| 2 Comments »

The Technology Salon* hosted at IREX on Thursday, June 6, focused on what the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) would mean for international development, especially for US-based NGOs and government contractors.

Tony Pipa, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Policy, Planning and Learning at USAID, started the Salon off by noting that IATI is an inter-agency US government commitment, not only a USAID commitment. USAID is the lead agency for developing the IATI implementation plan, building on existing agreements on transparency, enhancing the US Government’s commitments to transparency, openness and accountability. A key element of these efforts is the Foreign Assistance Dashboard which places the data into the public realm in a user friendly way, making it easier to understand visually and also more accessible and easy to find. The goal is not only transparency, but greater accountability. The US Government hopes to streamline reporting requirements, meeting multiple requirements for a range of international and national reporting standards. The goal for USAID is making aid more useful for development.

Steve Davenport from AidData followed, giving some background on IATI itself. IATI was initially sponsored largely by DFID, but has since grown as a partnership. Over 75% of development assistance is represented by signatories to IATI now. Eight donors are now publishing and twenty-three developing countries have signed on (involving partner countries at the local level as well). Different groups are conducting pilots to see how to implement as IATI gains more traction. For this reason, it would be a good move for US INGOs and contractors to get in front of the transparency and accountability curve rather than get hit by the wave. Better transparency allows organizations to better show their results. The IATI standard can lead to better coordination among the different actors, making it easier to broaden our collective impact. This is especially important now given that aid budgets are being reduced. IATI can be thought of as a group of people, a set of commitments, and an XML standard for moving data from point a to point b. Application developers are beginning to pick this up and develop tools that allow for new ways of visualizing the data, making it actionable and improving accessibility, which can lead to better accountability.

Larry Nowels (Consultant at Hewlett, ONE campaign) spoke about Hewlett experience with IATI. Hewlett has made a large investment in transparency and accountability, supporting US and European organizations as well as startups in Africa and Asia over the past 10 years. Transparency is a key building block, so that governments and their citizens know what is being spent, where and on what, and how to make better decisions about resources and reducing waste. It also allows citizens to hold their governments accountable. Hewlett was one of the original signatories and the second publisher to the IATI standard. A key question remains: What’s in it for an organization that publishes according to the standard? For some teams, IATI makes all the sense in the world, but for others it seems to be a waste of resources. The Obama Administration (Open Government Directive, Open Government Partnership, Foreign Assistance Dashboard), all show a strong commitment to transparency. The tough part is implementation of IATI standards and details are still being worked out to find an ideal way.

Larry considers a central repository ideal, but there are issues with quality control and the Foreign Assistance Dashboard does not add data that was not already publicly available. In addition, many US Government agencies have not been added to the Dashboard yet, and getting them on board will be difficult if they are less dedicated than USAID or State. It’s critical to institutionalize IATI and related initiatives and internalize them, given that we cannot assume Obama’s will be a multi-term presidency. In the past 3 years, a number of bills around the theme of accountability and transparency have been introduced by both parties. The Poe-Berman Bill (HR 3159) provides a law to entrench the use of tools like the Dashboard. The Administration, especially the State Department, however, has not engaged Congress enough on these issues, and this has led to some roadblocks. White House pressure could help strengthen support for this initiative; however, there may be pushback by Republicans who generally oppose the US subscribing to international standards.

Discussion**

What is the overlap between the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and IATI?

What is the practical, on-the-ground use or application of IATI data? What does it look like when it is working how it should? What would it ideally look like 5 years from now?

  • There is enormous need for data sharing in a crisis – it is essential for coordinating and understanding the unfolding situations in real-time in order to save lives. There is much more scrutiny as well as a need for rapid coordination and response during a humanitarian crisis, so it requires a higher level of transparency than development work. One way that has been suggested for getting more organizations on board is to start sharing more information during crises and draw the lessons over to development.
  • A project in Mexico City has run investigative campaigns on spending. This has led to the prosecution and resignations of political figures and even some threats against staff, which demonstrates how unsettling this open information can be to the powers that be. It is not about transparency for transparency’s sake. It’s about having a tool that can be used to inform, interpret situations and hold governments and donors accountable. It opens the system up for sharing information.
  • Currently this type of information isn’t available to Country Governments for coordination. Countries need to plan their fiscal year budgets, but rely heavily on donors, and both run on a different fiscal calendar. If donor information were more readily available, countries could plan better.
  • On a 5-year horizon, we would ideally see aid tracking down to the beneficiary level. Tools like IATI can help collect data in more automated ways. Open data can help us track both where funding is allocated and also what is actually being implemented. Additional work is needed on this side; for example, training journalists to understand how to use this data, how to access it – handing them a data file isn’t a very useful thing in and of itself.

That’s great, but great for whom? What does it mean? Does this lead to better aid? Better spending? And what if it creates unrealistic timelines, where development becomes more like a for-profit company that must demonstrate impact within a fiscal quarter? We all know that development initiatives and impact take much longer than three months. Will IATI mean that we will stop doing things that take longer? Things that cannot be checked off on a checkbox? Will we actually lower the quality of our programs by doing this?

  • IATI, like any form of transparency, is only one element of a whole stream of things. The new USAID monitoring and evaluation system is a breakthrough for actually learning from evaluations and data. It’s a longer-term investment than Congress is used to, so it’s a matter of convincing Congress that it is worth the value. There is a better chance of USAID admitting failure in the future if the systems are in place to demonstrate these failures in hard data and learn from them. It’s about discovering why we failed – if we spend money and it doesn’t work, we can at least then identify weaknesses and build on them. Showing failures also demonstrates credibility and a willingness to move forward positively.
  • We can err on the side of openness and transparency and engage congress and the public, making a distinction between performance management and the long-term impact of development projects. There is no way of holding back on publishing information until it is in a format that will be readily understandable to congress and the public. This is a reality that we are going to have to live with; we have to put the data out and build on it. This can help to start important conversations. IATI is important for closing the loop, not just on public resources but also private resources (which is why Hewlett’s commitment is important). As private development resources increase, USAID becomes less dominant in the development landscape. Making sure data from many sources comes in a common format will make it easy to compare, and bring this data together to help understand what it going on. The way to visualize and think of it now is different because we are still in early days. IATI will begin to change the approach for how you evaluate impact.
  • IATI data itself does not tell the whole story, so it’s important to look at additional sources of information beyond it. IATI is only one part of the monitoring and evaluation effort, only one part of the transparency and accountability effort.

How do you overcome conflicts of interest? If development outcomes or data that is opened are not in the interest of the country government, how do we know the data can be trusted, or how does it feed back to the public in each country?

  • China’s investment in Africa, for example, may make it more difficult to understand aid flows in some ways. It will take a while to enforce the standards, particularly if it is done quickly, but we can draw the BRICs into the conversation and we are working with them on these topics.

The hard part is the implementation. So what are the time lines? How soon do we think we will see the US publish data to IATI?

  • At this time, the US Government hasn’t created an implementation timeline, so the first order of business is to get IATI institutionalized, and not to rush on this. It’s a larger issue than just USAID, so it must be done carefully and tactfully so it stays in place over the long term. USAID is working on getting data on the Dashboard to get the Obligation of Spending data up and project level data up. USAID is trying to balance this with consistency and quality control. How do you produce quality data when you are publishing regularly? These issues must be addressed while the systems are being developed. Once USAID puts data on the Dashboard, it will begin being converted to IATI data

IATI is still a donor-led initiative. NGOs involvement opens this data up to use by communities. Training individuals to use this information is not necessarily sufficient. Are there plans to build institutions or civil society organizations to support the data to be useful for communities and the general public?

  • The data can assist with the development of watchdog organizations who provide a platform for citizens to act together for accountability. Examples of organizations that are currently receiving funding to do this are Sodnet and Twaweza. There has also been support to think tanks throughout Africa to build the capacity of objective, independent policy analysts who write critiques of government initiatives.
  • There is a definite need to mainstream IATI and bring everyone together into one single conversation instead of setting up parallel structures.

So how do you build these institutions, watchdogs, etc? Will USAID really put out RFPs that offer funding to train people to criticize them?

  • This is where Hewlett and other organizations come in. They can run these trainings and build capacities. The Knight News Challenge is doing a lot of work around data-driven journalism, for example.

This is going to put a lot of pressure on people to be more efficient and might drive down resources in these spheres. There is a limited amount of incentive for organizations to involve themselves. Is there a way to incentivize it?

  • It will also drive some internal efficiencies, creating greater internal coherence within development organizations. It’s very hard to pinpoint impact within organizations because there isn’t an easy way to draw comparisons between projects, implementation strategies, etc. People always worry: What if we find something that makes us look bad? So IATI is just one part of a bigger effort to push for commitment to transparency across the board. Committing to IATI can lead to a mindset which focuses organizations on efficiency, transparency and accountability.
  • Filling out the Dashboard will be helpful in many respects, and it will make information more accessible to the general public, as well as congressional staffers, etc. It can serve multiple constituencies while making data more usable and transparent. USAID is going to be as aggressive as possible to get information on the dashboard into IATI format. There has not been a conversation about requiring implementing partners to meet IATI standards, but USAID itself is committed.

***

Thanks to IREX for hosting the Salon, our fantastic lead discussants and participants for stimulating discussion, Wayan Vota for inviting me to coordinate the Salon and Anna Shaw for sharing her Salon notes which were the basis for this blog post.

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*The Technology Salon is sponsored Inveneo in collaboration with IREX, Plan International USA, Jhpiego and ARM.

**The Salon runs by Chatham House Rule, so no attribution has been made for the discussion portion of the Salon.

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