IATI Workshop for Development NGOs

Description

The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) was created in 2008 at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra. This Initiative has created an open data standard to make development cooperation more transparent and accountable to citizens. Most donors of official development aid (ODA) and a number of NGOs have already agreed to publish to this common data standard. If all donors and development NGOs adopt this data standard IATI will become a very powerful tool to increase aid effectiveness and citizen’s participation.

In collaboration with the Finnish NGO Networks KEHYS and KEPA the OpenAid project will organise an IATI Workshop for Development NGOs on Thursday 20th. The focus of this workshop will be on how development NGOs can implement the IATI standard. What are the technical and organisational challenges? How have other NGOs overcome these challenges? What are the tools available to help publish open aid data? A representative of the UK NGO network BOND will share with us the experience of UK NGOs implementing IATI. Join us!

Session Host

@OpenAidGermany

Contributors

Rolf Kleef, Open for Change

Mika Välitalo, Plan Finland, @vatamik

Joni Hillman, Bond UK, @JoniHillmanBond

Auli Starck, KEPA, Finland: auli.starck@kepa.fi

Taina Hanhikoski, KEHYS, Finland: taina.hanhikoski@kehys.fi

Claudia Schwegmann, OpenAid/OKFN, Germany, @OpenAidGermany

Bios

Auli Starck: Coordinator for Member Organisations in KEPA – umbrella organisation of more than 300 Finnish non-governmental organisations working with global development issues. Current focus on development effectiveness of Civil Society Organisations.

Mika Välitalo: ICT4D Program Manager in Plan Finland. Working mainly for several African countries in the field of ICT for Education, Birth Registration, ICT4D best practices and aid transparency.

Joni Hillman:

Rolf Kleef:  Internet trailblazer. Weaving the web to help humanity. Implementing open data, open organisations and online collaboration in civil society. Cofounder of Open for Change, the network for open development. Current focus on helping organisations adopt and implement IATI, and working on data reporting tools.

Taina Hanhikoski:

Matti Lahtinen: Senior Officer, NGO Cooperation Unit, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland. Recently participated in developing internal data systems and electronic application processes. Earlier career in several Finnish development NGOs.

Claudia Schwegmann: Open Aid Data Activist promoting IATI in Germany and other European Countries, team member of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and of the IATI Technical Advisory Group. Development consultant in organisational development, evaluation and feedback processes.

Details

Location: 8th Floor Auditorium

Date & Time: Thur 20, 11.30 - 15.30

Target Group: Development NGOs (technical and policy staff), anyone interested in the topic

Topic Stream: Open Development

 

11.30-13.00 Introductory Session

Facilitation: Mika

  • Welcome (Auli and Claudia, 5 min)
  • What is open data (Rolf 5 min): Some background on open data in Europe: EPSI Directive 2003, Visby declaration 2009, Open Data Strategy of the European Commission, Open Government Partnership; examples of successful open data projects: Frankfurt-gestalten.de, Omvard.se, fixmystreet.org, World Bank Open Data
  • Brief reminder of development effectiveness discussion (Auli, 5 min): (Paris, Accra Agenda for Action, Busan Partnership for Effective Development, CSO group on development effectiveness)
  • Presentation of IATI (Claudia 10 min): What is IATI, Who is involved? Which NGOs have published so far and to what extent, how many have used online tools to publish their data to IATI, Institutional set-up (steering committee, secretariat, technical advisory group, sub-groups to the TAG (NGO group - possibility for cooperation), Overview of the standard
  • Business Case for IATI and for Open Development (Joni 10 min): Why do IATI?, What are the benefits? How does open development relate to core values of NGOs? Relevance for efficiency, leverage more funding, advantage of aidstream/AKVO/OpenAidRegister
  • Input MFA (10 min): Why has the Finnish MFA signed up to IATI? (Timo Olkkonen, Unit for General Development Policy and Planning, MFA)
  • Questions and discussion (45 min)

(Claudia, Rolf, Joni and MFA)

 

14.00-15.30 Workshop “doing IATI” - more practical Facilitation: Claudia

  • Welcome (Claudia, 5 min)
  • Case: Transparency International (Craig Fagan, 10 min): How Transparency International implemented IATI: why, how was it decided, who was involved, how much effort, time etc did it cost, what plan/phases, main lessons learned
  • Break-out groups “going open” (20 min): discussing making the case for IATI and “open” in your organisation, getting people involved, addressing fears and unknowns, perspectives from various stakeholders in and around the organisation
  • Outline of a plan (Joni 5 min): getting it started in your organisation; 5 steps of implementing IATI#
  • Break-out groups “5 steps to IATI” (20 min): discussing the outline of the plan, ways to phase introduction of IATI, technical and legal challenges, how to find support and documentation, how to “break down” big discussions and problems
  • “Doing it together” (Rolf, Joni, 10 min): how BOND in the UK and Partos in The Netherlands are helping “the sector” implement IATI.
  • How can IATI be promoted in Finnish development cooperation (20 min): Discussion with Matti Lahtinen, NGO unit of MFA and with KEPA and KEHYS; creating “peer support”, stimulating the exchange of learnings, making it a joint ambition, etc.