The team behind our global IT solutions

An international team of developers supports our diverse offering of technical solutions. These individuals work on AiDA, the aid management program, dgMarket, and Zunia, in addition to projects for clients such as UNDP and AFD. They are based in Armenia, Argentina, Bangladesh, Georgia, Kenya, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Ukraine, and the United States. Eduard Abrahamyan, Hrachya Yeghiazaryan, Vahan Amirbekyan, Tigran Papikyan, Aram Shahinyan, and Anush Martirosyan of the Armenian team are pictured here, captured in a rare moment of relaxation. Using developers around the world results in savings to our clients and solutions that are as adaptable as they are global.

Three things you should know about IATI

The first annual conference for the International Aid Transparency Initiative concluded October 21. Several staff members from Development Gateway attended. From their feedback and the conference presentations, a few themes emerged regarding efforts to make aid data more transparent and accessible. Here are three things you should know:

1. The intent of IATI is not to create a database. The aim is to establish a common set of standards and definitions, and a code of conduct for donors.
2. Aid information management systems at the country level do not replace the Creditor Reporting System of the OECD, rather they are complementary. Read the study that compares data reported to the CRS and aid management systems in Malawi and Burkina Faso. Rudolphe Petras of Development Gateway conducted the study, analyzing information in two implementations of the Aid Management Platform.
3. While the primary emphasis is on donors, civil society organizations also share the responsibility for transparency.

So far 18 signatories are committed to the process. The goal of establishing common information standards by the end of this year will probably not be met. Still, there is much interest as the need for increased transparency is great.

The report from the conference is here and the program with links to presentations is here.

Partners on a quest to make aid data transparent

We're back! And a lot has been happening. Look here for updates on IATI, European Development Days, and events like our photo contest and future barcamps.

This week we announced our partnership with PLAID and our aim to create a comprehensive repository of development data, easily accessible to all. AidData, as the joint venture is called, will have all the content of AiDA and much more. Captured in the photo are two happy people who have been working hard to make this venture a reality, Riccardo De Marchi Trevisan, manager of AiDA, and Jessica Sloan, associate director of the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations at the College of William and Mary.

We see this new portal, a site that will contain all the content from AiDA and much more, as a complement to the OECD Development Assistance Committee Creditor Reporting System. AidData will provide more timely and more detailed qualitative information on aid activities. Access to this data will benefit recipient countries, donors, development practitioners, and researchers. You can read the news release here and more about AidData here.

August Break

We're going to be taking a break from blogging for the rest of August. Enjoy the rest of the month and see you in September.

A bi-partisan change to USAID

by Matt Gyory

On July 28, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, including Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Richard Lugar of Indiana, introduced a bill to improve U.S. development efforts by updating the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for the 21st century. The introduction of this bill was part of a larger effort to improve USAID and increase its role in U.S. development efforts.

Senator Lugar has been particularly vocal in his support of changing the way USAID conducts business. He has written an op-ed in which he outlines many of the features to be found in the bi-partisan bill, including the need for increased staff and tracking project outputs to determine successes and best practices. Recently, Senator Lugar wrote a letter to the editors of the Washington Post to highlight the difficulty the Obama administration has had in finding a USAID Administrator.

In addition to the bi-partisan support and momentum this bill represents, it is a new commitment of USAID to the goals of transparent data and the measurement of its activities. Both Sections five (page nine of the bill in particular) and section six of the bill highlight the need for USAID to collect data and perform monitoring and evaluation assessments on their programs. These sections of the bill will improve the effectiveness of USAID’s efforts and possibly provide the development community as a whole with best practices and certainly with a surfeit of data on USAID’s activities.

To ensure that the information USAID will now collect will be used, Section 10 of the bill recommends that the U.S. fully engage and comply with the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). IATI was one of the outcomes of last year’s high level forum in Accra. The type of transparent information IATI compliance would entail will give U.S. and international aid practitioners a greater wealth of information to ensure more effective aid.

The two parts of the bill highlighted here are clearly related. There is little point in collecting all of information USAID will be required to collect if no one will ever see it. The two major points are also key issues for Development Gateway. Aid effectiveness has been a key point of our work and we have begun to emphasize the possibilities that more transparent information can offer. We look forward to the progression of this bill and hope that whatever final version is submitted to President Obama for his signature contains these provisions to ensure more transparent, effective aid.

The full text of the legislation is available here.