Open data for aid and development

Rupert Simons

April 27, 2016

Source: World Development Report 2016

We’ve all heard of big data

Cellphone subscriptions worldwidebillion

2000 20150.7

7

Gigabytes of data produced every daybillion

2000 2015

2.5<0.1

But data is often poor or non-existent in countries where you need it most

Managing the Ebola crisis

• Where are the patients?

• Where are the ambulances?

• Have the health workers been paid?

Source: Nature, FT

Estimating the size of the economy

• Did Nigeria’s GDP really double in two years?

• ‘Middle income’ countries pay more to borrow from the World Bank, but less in the market

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

0

1000

2000

3000

Nigeria GDP, USD per capita

Publish What You Fund reviewed the quality of data produced by major aid donors

10

25

65Activity level data (28 indicators)

Organisation level data (8 indicators)Commitment to transparency (3 indicators)

We worked with people from

46 agencies in

22 countries

and 36 independent reviewers and CSOs

100

To assess 39 indicators of data on aid and development

Maximum possible score

Over a data collection period of 14 weeks

What we found: Aid is getting more transparent

2013 Index 2014 Index 2016 Index4 7

1058

816

16

1616

15

726 22

5

Very PoorPoorFairGoodVery Good

Source: Aid Transparency Index 2013-16

Performance of agencies in the Index

Total 67 68 46

Ten donors met the Busan commitment in full:

• UNDP• U.S. – MCC• UNICEF• UK – DFID• The Global Fund• World Bank – IDA• IADB• AsDB• Sweden• AfDB

300+

Nearly 400 organisations are now publishing to IATI

Number of IATI publishers by type2011-15

Source: IATI annual report 2015

The norm is gradually shifting from annual reporting to quarterly, monthly or real time

Annual reporting• Companies House/ Charity Commission returns• OECD-DAC Credit Reporting Statistics (for official donors)• Annual report on website (usually in PDF)

Regular updating• Monthly or quarterly publication• Machine-readable and web formats• Edit for confidentiality

Real-time data sharing• Uploaded automatically• Daily decision-making• Limited editing

Some governments are using the data

NGOs are using it too, for example:

Source: IATI, Development Gateway

IATI import system in useIATI import system under developmentIATI partner country

Most people outside government are not

Source: d-portal.org, 2016 Aid Transparency Index

Partly because it’s not easy to use

Partly because they don’t know it’s there

Partly because the data is of poor quality

“Even stakeholders that regularly search for aid information, like civil society watchdog organizations and parliamentarians, were not aware of the available data sources.”

USAID aid transparency pilot assessment, July 201513% of activities in

Ghana had a location specified

Meanwhile, civic registration and administrative data lags far behind

Source: Development Initiatives “Data Revolution in Africa”

Census

Househ

old su

rvey

Pove

rty ce

nsus

Agricul

tural

census

Birth st

atistic

s

Death

statist

ics

82

45 33 29 22 13

9

40

2913 18

9

9 1538

58 6078

Recent (last 10 years for census, last 3-5 years for survey)

Out of date

Unusable or unavailable

Quality and availability of data in African countries, percentage of countries

Estimates for closing data gaps range widely, with $100-200 million per year as the median

Source: Brookings; CGD; SDSN

17-66

Cost of building and maintaining statistical systems to monitor the Sustainable Development GoalsUSD million per year

100-200

1,100900-

1,000

>10,000

New moneyExisting aidOwn resourcesNot specified

So what should we do about it?

• A perspective from the INGO Accountability Charter

• What do you think?

• Publish What You Fund perspective

• Data quality• Awareness• Tools