Hosted by: IATI Secretariat and Governing Board

Live interpretation in French will be available for this session / Une interprétation en direct en français sera disponible

Description:

We are looking forward welcoming you all at IATIs fifth Virtual Community Exchange (VCE5)! Join the plenary Opening to 'meet-and-greet' the (new) IATI Secretariat, hear from the Governing Board, and get excited for the upcoming IATI Members' Assembly and Community Exchange in Colombia (5-7 March 2024).

Make sure to make your voices are heard, share your questions and ideas at the start of this edition of IATIs Virtual Community Exchange!

Hosted by: Charlie Martial Ngounou, AfroLeadership (facilitator); Claire Provost, investigative journalist; Siem Vaessen, Zimmerman

Live interpretation in French will be available for this session / Une interprétation en direct en français sera disponible

Description:

Join this interactive ‘Fireside Chat’ to discover how different IATI community-members are analyzing and using IATI data. Facilitated by IATI Governing Board-member Charlie Ngounou this session will showcase a wide variety of stories and use-cases, such as:

• Claire Provost, investigative journalist, will share how this accountability investigation on LGTBQI-rights used an IATI-methodology, and how it was covered through the Guardian, Vice News, BBC, El Pais and many other news outlets; 

• Siem Vaessen, CEO at Zimmerman, will showcase their new DataXplorer platform. This AI-powered data exploration tool aims to make representation of data easy and powerful for everyone, incorporating multiple data sources like IATI;

Start your VCE5 with a bang, and light your IATI-fire at this Fireside Chat! 

Hosted by: Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS)

Description:

This presentation will explore the Global Alliance for Food Security (GAFS) Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, with a specific emphasis on the Action Focus Area and its partnership with the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). The primary objective of the GAFS Action Focus Area is to provide a user-friendly and robust system for tracking international financing for food and nutrition security, with a focus on real-time coordination. The presentation will underscore the ongoing collaboration between GAFS and IATI, which has been instrumental in integrating food and nutrition security financing data into the GAFS Dashboard.

The presentation will delve into the critical role of Food Security Crisis Preparedness Plans (FSCPPs) within the GAFS partnership, which serve as a vital component in strengthening preparedness for major food security crises. This section emphasizes the growing necessity to track contingency and emergency financing during such crises to facilitate early responses, enhance information sharing between partners, identify gaps, and promote accountability.

To address these challenges effectively, the presentation will outline ideas for future collaborations between IATI and GAFS, such as establishing a dedicated and sustained system for tracking contingency financing resources during food and nutrition security crises. The session will provide a comprehensive explanation of the specific funding resources which will be tracked by the system, as well as the proposed tracking framework, which offers solutions to bridge critical gaps in tracking responses to food crises and enhance the timeliness, coordination, comparability, and comprehensiveness of financing data. In line with this, we aim to foster discussions on methods to bring together policy expertise for further defining and refining how we find and filter such data, recognizing the importance of engaging the IATI community in this endeavor. With the goal of highlighting the collective wisdom of the IATI community to make the best use of its channels for this purpose, we will advocate for establishing an "GAFS/IATI Food Security Community of Practice.”

The presentation will include a perspective shared by Steven Flower, shedding light on the valuable contributions made by IATI to the GAFS and the enhanced value brought about by the collaboration with the GAFS Dashboard. This session will also reserve ample time for an open discussion and a question-and-answer session, encouraging active participation from attendees to collectively strengthen global food security and nutrition response tracking mechanisms.

Hosted by: Winnie Kamau, Association of Freelance Journalists (facilitator); Omran Najjar and Petya Kangalova, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap; Cecilia Wallen and Sylvan Ridderinkhof, Open Data Company; Brent Phillips, Humanitarian AI podcast

Live interpretation in French will be available for this session / Une interprétation en direct en français sera disponible

Description:

Over the years, IATI data has become an essential resource for governments, civil society organizations, and researchers working in the field of international development. This and next year the development community will see a wide variety of initiatives launched focusing on prototyping AI applications, including significant initiatives launched by leading aid organizations. Emerging technologies advance at a breakneck pace, as AI and machine learning are being increasingly integrated into various aspects of development work. IATI is not operating in isolation of these fast-pacing developments. 

This interactive Fireside Chat explores ‘The Impact of AI and Emerging Technologies on IATI Data’, facilitated by Winnie Kamau (Association of Freelance Journalists/ Africa Gen AI Lab). It aims to demystify the intersections between emerging technologies, such as AI, and IATI data. For example by explaining the different “types of AI”, showcasing opportunities how it can improve development effectiveness, and help you navigate the risks associated with AI and Machine Learning. 

It is critical to discuss, understand and harness how emerging technologies are impacting the IATI data ecosystem in order to ensure IATI tools remain future-proof. Therefore we invite all of you to join this interactive session and directly engage with our AI-experts / session-speakers in this Fireside Chat.

Hosted by: The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Description:

Supporting development in developing countries is almost by definition a team effort. Because nobody in this field works alone, it is one of IATI’s greatest strengths that it is a network data standard: IATI makes visible who works with whom, where money ultimately ends up, and what happened with that money. 

This is, at least, the theory, the potential. In practice, the data of many publishers – including our own – is such that it can be quite difficult and sometimes impossible to make these networks visible. Why is this, and how can we improve it? 

In this talk, Theo van de Sande of the Netherlands MFA presents his research on the usability of the linked traceability of four organisations in particular: the Netherlands MFA, IOM, UNDP, and UNPF. In the second part of this session, we would like to discuss with you what publishers need – from the community and from the tools we provide – to improve the datasets from a linked transparency perspective. 

Hosted by: Publish What You Fund

Description: 

The widespread adoption of the IATI standard has resulted in a global aid dataset which is now demonstrating its value for research, policy analysis and advocacy efforts. However there remain gaps in the data. This session intends to provide space for a discussion about where community members feel attention should be prioritized in order to close some of these gaps. The session will start with a brief introduction to the current dataset and highlighting specific areas where gains could be made. We will then moderate a discussion between attendees with an aim to agree a set of priorities for further exploration by the Secretariat and other stakeholders. This session will follow on from the Dutch session on traceability and thus will benefit from that discussion also.

Hosted by: Open Data Services Cooperative (IATI Secretariat)

Description: 

So far, over 1,500 organisations have published open data with the IATI standard. Whilst this is a great achievement, there are many thousands more development cooperation and humanitarian organisations not included. How do we scale and reach a much wider group? What do we need to do to prepare for this? This session will give a brief overview of the current publishing setup and then seek input from participants on alternative approaches. As we start the process of forming a strategy to serve IATI to 2030 it's crucial to have this conversation now.

Hosted by: AIDA

Live interpretation in French will be available for this session / Une interprétation en direct en français sera disponible

Description: 

Participants will discover the opportunities for clear and accessible IATI data for partner country governments and will themselves play a role in driving improvements towards this end. Building on the experiences of the Country Development Finance Data portal and discussions at the Members’ Assembly in March 2023, the session will explore how AIDA can be used to create a user-friendly country-level dashboard with high-quality data. This dashboard enables government officials to monitor activities comprehensively, from financial to results data, across various publishers. We aim to enrich this initiative with community input, shaping the ideal country dashboard to meet stakeholders' needs effectively. IATI newcomers and experts alike can contribute and be inspired by this initiative.