Deconstructing IATI, DADCoP 2014
Supporting local CSOs implement the standard
By Steve Kenei
22nd Jan
2014
Development
Initiatives exists
to end absolute
poverty by 2030
www.devinit.org
www.devinit.org
Who are we? Short story
www.devinit.org
Global Humanitarian
Assistance
www.devinit.org
Budget Analysis
www.devinit.org
Investments To End Poverty
www.devinit.org
AidInfo
www.devinit.org
AidInfo
www.devinit.org
Recap
Objective : End chronic poverty by 2030 through
access to better information on resource allocation
How?
• Providing thorough analysis on how money is spent
• Work on building capacity for organisations on
analytical and reporting skills
• Forge forward towards a common open transparency
standard
• We believe in working with technology to influence
policy
www.devinit.org
What’s DI’s role in IATI?
Technical Lead
Outreach to non-traditional
donors and civil society
www.devinit.org
IATI: Breaking down the
standard
 Multi stake-holder
initiative
 Improvement of aid
transparency
Publishers include
government agencies, multilaterals, local and
international NGOs, dev
finance institutions and
even the private sector
www.devinit.org
IATI: Under the hood
• XML based open standard
for reporting
• High degree of technicality
• Is combination of two
standards;
 Organisation
Standard
Activity Standard
www.devinit.org
The Organisation Standard
• Who is reporting?
 Donor, recipient etc
• Forward planning budgets (including period and value)
 Reporting agency, recipient agency and
countries
• Links to organisation documents
 Annual reports, published results etc
www.devinit.org
Activity Standard
• More complex (has about 60 entry fields)
• Activity can be classified as a project, programme,
contract etc
• Contains transactional data
• Sectoral classifications
• Geographic data
• Activity level documentation links
• Outputs, impact and results
www.devinit.org
Transactions
Types
• Commitments, Incoming Funds, Disbursements,
Reimbursements, Expenditure, Interest, Loan
Repayments (Equity purchase/sale, etc)
Currencies and value dates
Granularity
• Minimum ask = quarterly aggregates
www.devinit.org
Visualising an Activity
What
• Project Number, Title, Description, Sector
Who
• Funding, Accountable, Implementing
When
• Start Date, End Date
Where
• Country/Region
How much?
• Incoming Funds, Disbursements, Expenditures, Budgets
www.devinit.org
Publication
• Data belongs to the publishing organisation
• It is published and stored with the originator with links to
the IATI registry
• API’s are issued to 3rd party application developers to
develop visualisation tools
www.devinit.org
The registry
www.devinit.org
What it looks like on the
registry
www.devinit.org
What it looks like to you
www.devinit.org
Day to day...
Maintain
and
upgrade
the
standard
Support
to
publisher
s
Publishin
g tools
Country
work
Political
and
technical
partners
Guidanc
e and
documen
tation
Training
TAG
Data use
tools
Outreach
www.devinit.org
Local CSO outreach &
support
• Started late last year
• Girls Education Challenge fund – entry
point
• The GEC has about 15 grantees in the
region
• Stakeholder scoping in Kenya and Uganda
www.devinit.org
Training methodology
• Understanding the benefits of
transparency
• Going through case studies of first time
publishers to understand challenges likely
to be faced
• Do internal feasibility studies to fathom
difficulties likely to arise and how to
overcome them
www.devinit.org
Training methodology
• Review of the standard
• What to publish
• Implementation schedule
• Publishing tools
www.devinit.org
Implementation Schedule
www.devinit.org
Publishing tools
Xls/csv
conversion
Web Entry
Platform
In-house
IATIxml
www.devinit.org
CSV conversion tool
• For use with large data sets
• User converts system generated .xls files
into .csv files
• Automated conversion of .csv into .xml
• .xml published onto registry
www.devinit.org
CSV conversion tool
www.devinit.org
Web entry platform:
AIDSTREAM
• Secure, online project management
software developed by partners in Open
Nepal project
• Free and open source
• A user-friendly way of easily capturing and
publishing data
www.devinit.org
AIDSTREAM
www.devinit.org
In action
www.devinit.org
Story so far
• One publisher in Kenya so far (ICL Africa)
• One to begin implementation by end of
January
• More than 15 local African CSOs
publishing
• Continued support for local CSOs
publishing
www.devinit.org
Way forward
• Further scoping and identification of
stakeholders
• Continued outreach to local CSOs
• Developing a localised training manual
• Identify new entry points from development
partners
• Learn from DAD/UNDP; shift implementation
perception from being donor lead to
CSO/Country lead
• Working on unification of reporting standards
www.devinit.org
Thank you very much
Steve Kenei
Development Initiatives Ltd
North Quay House
Quay side
Temple Back
Bristol
BS1 6FL
United Kingdom
www.devinit.org
www.devinit.org