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We are happy to announce the excellent grant awarded from Indigo Trust to this project, Open Aid Register. We are super excited to receive this grant which we are going to use to develop a more advanced and complete OAR. The enhancements, which are explained already in Indigo Trust’s blog are just the result of feedback from OAR’s users needs. We want to make OAR a more suitable platform for those small aid organizations who want to become transparent in an easy way.
We have been working hard with this project for one year. OAR was born as a Fulbright grant, because of the need of more open information of what aid organizations are doing and where. When we started with OAR, almost nobody in the opendata community knew about IATI and about Open Aid Register. I remember having to spell IATI like ten times, until people could understand what the acronym stands for :)
So we are really happy where things are going. In just a few days, the OKFestival will start and there will be a full topic stream of Open Development, where IATI is one of the main actors. Actually, this grant is not only OAR recognition, to me, it also means the full recognition and support from Indigo Trust to the IATI community. Indigo Trust was one of the first foundations publishing all the information to IATI. Following this link you may find more than 100 grants awarded from Indigo Trust. Not only they have been one of the first ones, but they have also included the IATI implementation and publication as part of their workflow on awarding a new grant. Indigo Trust is publishing every single grant they award to, at the very first moment they decide a new grant. This is just the smartest way to do it, and how all organizations should do it.
And last, but not least, we want to thank Indigo Trust for its fidelity, support and great professionalism. Indigo Trust is one of the best organizations I ever worked with (and we are just not saying this because of the grant!!). Thanks Matt, Thanks trustees. We’ll use every single cent to improve OAR and indeed, the whole IATI community.
Last year, DFID made an important announcement by saying that all aid projects funded by UK Government through DFID, should be available. This decision was a turning point within the IATI Community which has made increase the number of organizations dramatically.
I have applauded this brave decision from DFID which has helped the IATI and the open data community gain relevance. I hope other governments are thinking doing something similar too.
Some people working at NGOs, not familiar at all with IATI and technology, may find this process a bit overwhelming. But believe me, complying with IATI is not difficult at all.
Recently, I’ve been helping some NGOs (some of them I’m still on the process) who have projects funded by DFID to comply with their minimum level of information published in IATI. After some conversations, it took less than 1 hour to enter the information of their DFID funded project.
Some of the first thing we tell NGOs, is that DFID just requires a minimum level of information (not the whole standard). That reduces the complexity really a lot. Secondly, they dont need to start filling all their projects. Starting with one or two project information and then completing the information in succesive iterations, is also one of the easiest ways to approach it, so that they can comply.
And now then, for those who really just want to do this process as fast as possible, let me provide you with the minimum level of information from DFID requirements and the mapping to OAR data fields.
It’s just as simple as that!! And, what’s more important, if you have your data in an spreadsheet, we’ll be the ones doing it for you. Just contact us!!
Keep enjoying the summer.
Recently, I received a negative answer from an important charity (in response to our introduction of Open Aid Register and the aid transparency initiative) because of their excellent qualification obtained from a charity rater.
“we believe that we are already totally transparent and for that reason, charity navigator has given us their top rating of 4-stars…..”.
Going to their website, there’s no specific information of what current projects are being implemented (dates, budget, countries involved, expected results…).
Based on this, I have discovered the extensive world of charity raters. They are organizations dedicated to evaluating charities and philantropy organizations, so that donors can get more informed decisions based on charitie’s ranking.
I was taking some time reviewing some of their webistes to see how this evaluation is done. There are lots of them, charity navigator, charity watch, guidestar…among many others.
Most of their ranking systems are based on the financial health and organization information. Some of them also claim they look at transparency and accountability. Looking a bit deeper in their methodology, unfortunately as I imagined none of them include any reference to open data, IATI or something similar among their transparency and accountability evaluation.
They also don’t even check how much information about their developing projects are published in their website and what’s even more important, nothing about impact and evaluation of results. The most similar thing you can find, is the availability of an annual report (a pdf document).
I believe charity raters should review the way they evaluate transparency. The use of open data and standards should also be important. We need rating systems who have updated goals. Because it’s great to see that an organization has financial health, but I think it’s also very important to know in what they are using the money and what are the results. We, as open data advocates, need to spread the word. Of course, I have already answer their email…
Open Aid Register was launched in October last year. It’s been almost 4 months since I have been advocating for aid transparency in NGOs. I have been meeting with many people related with aid transparency to promote and let them know what Open Aid Register is and why we think it’s important NGO publish what they do.
Since then, we have three organizations that publish regularly what they do and 15 registered organizations. We are including every week new small functionalities that our organizations find useful. We are improving based on real NGO experience.
In January, new tools with the same aim have appeared. Because of this, last week Michael Roberts wrote a blog post about which tools are available for NGOs to convert their data to IATI.
Some conversations with NGO related people, instead of focusing in Open Aid Data, have turned in explaining what are the main differences between OAR to the other platforms that will be developed. I am also hearing things like “we want to be neutral”.
I think there’s a misunderstanding. All of these tools have the same aim and therefore you will always be neutral if you are with any of IATI compliant tool. Moreover, using Open Aid Register right now doesn’t mean you are marrying us for life (this is not your mortgage).
It is as simple as downloading/uploading your IATI file. Aren’t you happy with Open Aid Register? Dont worry, in 5 minutes you will have your data in the platform you want. Do you want to use OAR? Bring your IATI file and upload it from the main dashboard. That’s all you have to do. In other words, it doesn’t matter which tool you use, all are IATI compliant, and therefore interoperability works. Yet another benefit of working with Standards.
In the meantime, while we are talking and talking, we are spending a valuable time not helping NGOs publish what they do. Organizations are delaying/postponing aid data publishing because they want to see all these other tools being developed. And this is detrimental for the whole community.
We need data to improve all tools. We need organizations who start publish their information. We want raw data NOW and not tomorrow (as Tim Berners Lee said).
The reality is that after 1 year of hundreds of organizations talking and talking, only 5 NGOs have published what they are doing in the IATI Registry.
Now we need to stop talking and real acting. Organizations, please, mobilize data and we will help you publish it. You will find the whole experience simpler than you thought and in the assumption you dont like the experience you will be able to change the tool whenever you want. We need less discussion and more action. We need to learn from experience. Who wants to be the next one? :)
The Guardian recently reported on a call coming from the U.K. House of Commons international development committee that requested the country’s Department for International Development (DfID) begin fostering greater ties with private foundations to strengthen philanthropy efforts in the developing world.
The article points to the committee’s Jan. 20th report, which highlighted the overwhelming potential that organizations “unfettered by political and financial constraints” can have in making positive impacts in the development sector.
For Open Aid Register’s purposes, the report is especially meaningful because it calls for greater transparency in the partnership between private foundations and national governments. The Guardian notes that the report includes praise for the U.K. DfID—particularly for its role in the establishment of IATI—but encourages the DfID to “persuade more private foundations to comply with the endeavour.”
This is where our Open Aid Register project fits in; it serves as a tool to help these private foundations come into compliance with IATI. And in fact, Indigo Trust—a private English grant-making foundation “that funds technology-driven projects to bring about social change, largely in African countries”—updates project data regularly in Open Aid Register, serving as a model for other aid organizations operating within the U.K. and worldwide.
And while becoming more transparent may raise certain concerns for private foundations, The Guardian notes that the U.K.’s report addresses this, and to at least partially help quash those concerns, it encourages greater action on the DfID in helping civil society organizations “improve accountability by working more closely with local funding bodies and partner-country governments, and by improving methods of monitoring and evaluation.”
This positive pressure on private foundations coupled with potential offers of assistance from government organizations like the DfID are definitely a step in the right direction. These actions—coupled with the availability of tools like Open Aid Register to assist private foundations in becoming IATI compliant—may not change anything overnight. However, it certainly provides a great deal of hope for the future of philanthropic efforts in the developing world.
How many projects have you worked on that didn’t go as expected? My guess is, many of them. How many of the problems that you have encountered have been used by others so they don’t repeat the same problem? My guess is, not many. It is funny how this works. To fail is human, although we, as human, fail to recognize it.
In the development of aid projects around the world, as in other high risk sectors, failure is something that happens very often, but very difficult to share. Do an experiment, try to find out which projects have failed, how, and why. This is almost impossible. Fortunately, this is starting to change.
The website www.admittingfailure.com allows organizations to discuss what projects have worked and which have not. It all started when David Damberger was working with Engineers without Borders and created a rain harvesting system in India to provide water to a school. He felt like a hero when he returned home, but a year later he found out that the system was broken and provided no water. He felt like an imposter. The reason the water collection system failed was because no infrastructure was in place to ensure upkeep and maintenance.
Next time there is a rain harvesting project, proper maintenance should addressed before spending aid money.
Admitting Failure’s website is an excellent source for NGOs to share experiences and worst practices in order to help others and make sure the same mistakes are not repeated. We hope the website will include stories from many different NGOs. Let’s not forget, being transparent about failure leads to more successful projects.
Bonus: If you are interested in this story, watch Damberger’s inspiring ted video
It’s already one week since the closing ceremony of HLF4 in Busan. People has been travelling back, maybe even taking some days off after the intense work of last months. The reflexion time after the meeting is over and now it’s time to start.
Lets convert the high level words into operational daily work. LEts start doing what we have committed to do in Busan. And this is not a simple task. Beginning processes in the right direction requires a good strategy and a better leadership. But more important, requires people believe what they are doing.
The IATI standard has been reinforced. Canada, US and the IADB among others have joined IATI. This accounts for 75% of the ODA. More than 130 billion USD.
But I think the most important for IATI is the credibility that has raised in the HLF4. It’s not anymore something just developed from the UK and some european countries, it’s not a utopia of how hipotetically the development world will change with the ‘magic’ of technologies.
It’s a real standard developed, approved and implemented, which has already generated programs, applications, prototypes. It’s a work in progress which needs to continue develop. But more important, it is a real project that worths investing in it.
Open Aid Register started working just after it was the very beginning. In that time only UK and William and Flora HP Foundation had its projects in IATI. There was almost no documentation and anything. It was an incipient project but we were lucky to work hard and close to the people they were developing. And they were open to us.
We are in a different phase now. Things with IATI and the open development will start exploding very soon. We know that and OAR will continue expanding. Because, as we say in the title, its time to start the work NOW if you want to make a difference.
This month is being vibrant in terms of aid data. With the High Level Meeting in Busan for aid effectiveness, many organizations are moving towards IATI.
For example, Indigo Trust has made a great progress and has already published their information in IATI. It was the second organization which has already done it with Open Aid Register and the 4th NGO in the world. You can find their raw data here and visualize it here.
Additionally, PWYF also published their projects in IATI with Open Aid Register and in Mark Brough’s words, it took him merely 15 minutes (of course, he’s an expert on this field and PWYF has just a few activities). They became the 5th NGO to publish in IATI.
In the Open Aid Register team we are very excited with this evolution and because OAR is a work in progress, soon you will be able to include transactions and documents to the OAR platform, enabling more functionalities to be developed.
Its great to hear from these first NGOs that they are aiming at introducing more and more information. We are building a solid infrastructure for better transparency
Thank you and all we can say is that we will improve every day!
Hi! Are you using open aid register to convert your projects to IATI? Great. That’s #1 thing you have to do. And what’s next? Once you have your IATI file, the next thing you have to do is notify this to the IATI Registry, which is the central place where all IATI files are published. Want to learn how? View this short screencast tutorial of how to do this. I hope it helps!
Hi there!!
Open Aid Register goes to beta!
And this is a explanatory video of how to introduce information in the form. It only lasts 4 minutes and will help you when you want to start using it.
Any feedback (specially critical ones) are highly appreciated!
