Agreement on aid standards confirmed

We’re happy to report that last week’s meeting of the International Aid Transparency Initiative’s (IATI) signatories and Steering Committee members resulted in agreement on the remaining items to be included in the IATI standard. This is great news, and has the potential to make a huge difference for all users of aid information, especially those in partner countries.

Part one of the IATI standard was agreed last July, and already provides for the publication of more detailed and timely aid information – two key commitments made in the Accra Agenda for Action. Last week’s meeting saw new items added to the IATI standard including:

• Publication of key documents, in addition to aid data;
• Publication  of conditions and, where available, results of aid expenditure;
• Publication of activity-level (i.e. individual projects and programmes) budgets and planned disbursements;
• Proposals to improve the alignment of aid to partner country budget classifications.

All of these are priority needs for partner countries, and publication of this information will help them maximise effective management of aid resources. Full details of the whole standard will be available on the IATI website next week.

The newly agreed standard will also help IATI signatories meet their other Accra commitments on transparency, especially in relation to conditions, results and budget alignment.

We believe that the IATI standard represents real added-value – and not simply in terms of what information is published, but also how it is published. By encouraging donors  to publish their raw data in a common international standard, under open licenses, and linked to a central Registry, IATI paves the way for information intermediaries to use, re-purpose and combine this information with other data sources in an infinite number of ways. This means it can meet the varied needs of many different stakeholders.

This has the potential to make a huge difference in terms of increasing access to aid information. After many months of detailed technical work and intensive consultation, finalisation of the IATI standard really is something to be celebrated.

But the work doesn’t stop here – now that the standard has been agreed, the focus must turn to implementation. As we reported on 1^st February, DFID became the first donor to implement phase 1 of the IATI standard at the end of January. The Hewlett Foundation is set to follow suit shortly. At last week’s meeting, Sweden, the EC and Australia confirmed their intention to publish their information to the IATI standard prior to HLF4 in Busan at the end of November.

Remaining IATI signatories have until the end of March to submit their implementation schedules. We hope that many more will commit to publishing well in advance of Busan, giving the opportunity of showcasing what can be done with the IATI data at HLF4.

Meanwhile, there was encouraging news from the US, who, although they have not joined IATI, have taken part in meetings as an Observer, and contributed to the work of IATI’s Technical Advisory Group. The meeting heard a presentation from Dr Ruth Levine, USAID Deputy Director for Policy, Planning and Learning, on the US Government’s work on transparency. She confirmed that they have kept IATI in mind as they developed the US Foreign Assistance Dashboard, with a view to crosswalking to the standards developed by IATI so far as it was possible to do so.

Other positive news from last week’s meeting is that:

• A number of new organisations have expressed interest in joining IATI, and Sierra Leone became the 19^th partner country to endorse the Initiative.
• The Gates Foundation has indicated that it is taking steps to publish more detailed and timely data consistent with IATI standards. The U.S.-based Foundation Center has recently become involved in the TAG and is working on aligning its own reporting standard to the IATI standard, with funding from the Hewlett Foundation.
• Over 30 NGOs have expressed their interest in joining a new TAG working group which will focus on how IATI applies to them as development actors. The INGO Charter of Accountability asked for an IATI representative to attend their Annual General Meeting in April, to discuss what IATI might mean for NGOs.

All of these examples demonstrate that IATI is gaining momentum, and we hope that in the run up to Busan, many more aid providers will consider publishing their own information in line with the newly agreed IATI standard.