aidinfo's southern outreach work
Over the past few months aidinfo has conducted a scoping study to map key Southern CSO institutions, initiatives and opportunities related to aid information. The findings of this study have been synthesised into a draft paper which will inform the development of aidinfo's engagement strategy.
A team from aidinfo met with the team of consultants who wrote the study in Addis Ababa at the end of March to discuss the findings of the study and to plan how we should engage with Southern stakeholders. Wahu Kaara, Executive Director of the Kenya Debt Relief Network (KENDREN) acted as a resource person for the meeting and Artemy Izmestiev from UNDP attended to update the team on the consultations that UNDP are carrying out as part of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).
During the meeting we discussed the main findings of the paper:
- The CSOs that the researchers spoke to have a real interest in aid information but there are capacity issues and also aid is rarely a top priority
- Most organisations want aid information to lobby governments and local authorities to make them more accountable for funds in the budget , and to inform research and policy advocacy.
- Some organisations want a ‘one-stop shop’ for aid information, others are more interested in accessing data and re-purposing it to fit their needs
if you have experience working with aid information, or would like to use aid information, but don't know where to start, please get in touch and give us your comments on the paper. Have you had the same or different experiences to the organisations that we contacted?
We concluded the meeting by agreeing three priorities for the next phase of work:
- Understand stakeholder needs and gather examples of good practice
- Ensure that Southern voices are heard and inform the IATI process
- Facilitate Southern actors to take ownership of this agenda through enhancing existing capacity to use aid information and demonstrating and communicating the possibilities for using existing data.
