The Dutch MFA was the first donor to start requiring IATI data as a means ofreporting progress on ongoing programmes. More organisations had to represent their theory of change and M&E frameworks in IATI. What are challenges they face, and approaches they take?
I want to kick off with experiences and observations based on supporting various partnerships to improve their data quality, and on learning and consultation sessions with (mainly Dutch) NGOs:
We can do a lot with the standard: perhaps we need to develop guidelines similar to those of the Dutch MFA on how to represent for instance core funding, or partnerships, to create a common practice around results.
How do others work with results data right now? Let's share experiences, approaches, and lessons learned!
Suitable for financial and technical audiences, those with policy and information modeling interest
Unlike in the development world, financial and project reporting is already deeply embedded in humanitarian planning and operations, far beyond a desire for transparency. OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS) has a mandate to coordinate funding and project information from UN agencies, iNGOs, and implementing partners, and to trace the flow of funding throughout the sector.
While IATI’s current traceability support meets many of the humanitarian sector’s needs, there are some special cases that are either unsupported or awkward fits with the current IATI model, including the following:
How can IATI trace funding provided to an organisation that hasn’t been allocated to programmes, projects, or activities yet (other than by creating pseudo-activities)? For example, if DFID gives $1m to UNICEF for general programming, then UNICEF allocates that to its country offices, how do we represent those steps?
How can IATI reporting align with strategic reporting frameworks in the humanitarian sector, based on the annual inter-agency, cross-sector Humanitarian Response Plans for affected countries?
The objective of the session is to determine whether there are commonalities in the reporting approaches of different organisations, or common challenges that could be addressed through joint work or guidelines.
The IATI Datastore was launched in 2012 although has never progressed beyond alpha status. Whilst this tool experiences some use, it frequently suffers import problems and is difficult to debug and maintain from a technical point of view. Informal usability research has shown that significant improvements are needed to make this tool useful for wider data use, particularly for non-technical users.
The IATI Technical Team are committed to providing a more usable, robust and maintainable iteration of the Datastore, with work beginning in mid 2017. In this session we will begin to gather user requirements for a future data store. Outputs will form part of the detailed scoping resulting in technology choices that will lead to an improved product.
