2010
TIMELINE
•The Ministry of Planning and Foreign Cooperation [SEPLAN] was created
•Information and documents regarding foreign cooperation were found in
boxes in a warehouse
•SEPLAN began a campaign of gathering information in an Excel Spreadsheet
•We created an Microsoft Access Database that contained this information,
but the tool was unruly, complicated to use.
•In order to produce reliable and timely information for decision makers, we
saw the need to establish a modern system of handling Aid data
2011
• Honduras became a signatory of IATI and took decisive steps towards
establishing an AMP that could house the data provided by IATI.
• A pilot study and AMP were set up at the Ministry.
2012
• A more complete and manageable version of the AMP was made
available.
2013
• AMP was made public with the creation of a simplified public portal
where anyone with an internet connection could visit and get a good idea of
the International Aid portfolio in Honduras.
• We’ve :
•
Georeferenced each project down to the municipal level.
•
E-library available with documents relating to the projects, sectorial
diagnostics, gender studies, impact evaluations and general consultancy
products.
•
Moved valuable documents from forgotten shelves into the public
domain.
•
Triggered a paradigm shift in public access to information related
to the use of public funds, specifically those related to Development
cooperation.
Before the Establishment of AMP
• We faced significant challenges in obtaining accurate and timely
information.
• Development cooperation makes up almost 15% of our national budget and
around 70% of our public investment. Therefore it is of crucial importance
that we be able to access Aid Data in very short timeframes, analyze the data
and insert it into our national development plans.
•Having data available is not only about transparency, it is about creating
national capacities in development planning and institutionalize a real and
effective alignment of development cooperation to our National
Development Plan.
•Georeferencing Aid data has been crucial in helping us identify which
geographical regions have been neglected by donors and which areas have
become saturated and inevitably fragmented due to project proliferation.
After the Establishment of AMP
• Now we have the means to request and register aid information in a
standardized format compliant with IATI.
• Information is now accessible to the public.
• We’ve also made important efforts to get other actors involved in the use
of this data.
Next Steps
•Donors must continue their efforts to report regularly and on time
•AMP will help with the Aid Predictability information for Government
Planning
• A strengthened IATI registry will bolster country partner efforts in data
transparency
•Making aid data transparent is making partner countries stronger
counterparts, it helps us in development planning, and is an invaluable tool
for how partner countries manage aid.
•Honduras is working on a South South Cooperation module and we will
analyze whether the IATI standard is a suitable mechanism for sharing this
type of information.
South South Cooperation
Module
•Why do we need a SSC module?
•Continued growth of South-South cooperation
•Emergence of new actors and modalities
•Systematize the SSC offer and demand
•What's different?
•Special emphasis on qualitative data; while still including financial data.
•What do we expect to accomplish with this module?
• Ensure the sustainability of the knowledge sharing.
• Take better stock on lessons learned.
• Better monitor and improve the implementation of projects.
• Make SSC a more visible component of our aid portfolio
Challenges
• The lack of a standardized format and consensus on general definitions
about SSC at regional and global level.
•Although our AMP is compliant with the current IATI standard, we collect
data from Donor Country Offices and feed it manually into the AMP.
• The information that is found in the IATI registry does not yet represent an
advantageous way of collecting and using data.
•Donors seldom report their activities in a regular fashion, and even so, the
data is not as current as the data that we collect manually.
•Data collection and data entry implies a cost in human resource time which
could be diminished by automatic data exchange.