Posts categorized News/Events

We at Development Gateway have had the privilege of working in 25 different countries through our Aid Management Program (AMP). These countries are spread throughout so many different regions – West Africa, East Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Balkans, the Caribbean, and Central America; their experiences vary widely, yet they often encounter similar difficulties and share many of the same goals and aspirations.

On 25 September, the city of Cape Town explicitly recognized the importance of making city government data accessible to the public with the approval of an Open Data Policy. The policy lays out a plan to make data centrally accessible through the development of an open data portal – with the goal of increasing transparency and empowering citizens to hold the government accountable.

After the 2014 Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank, below are some key questions and takeaways on how open data, development finance, and diverse stakeholders mix:Why do we need to publish data?

One of the biggest challenges facing a complex entity like the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) is how to coordinate efforts across the 32 agencies, departments, and programs that play a role in the UN’s development work. Coordination means collecting and standardizing data from dozens of offices managing thousands of activities to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, coherence and relevance of UN development assistance.

Last week, Development Gateway participated in the M&E Tech Conference – moderating two panels and participating in a hands-on session. Below are highlights from each:How Can We Leverage Open Data to Enhance Results?DG’s Senior Director of Operations and Co-Executive Director of AidData Nancy McGuire Choi spearheaded a discussion with Kat Townsend (USAID), Chantale Wong (Independent), Rob Baker (Ushahidi), and Susan Stout (Georgetown).

For years, Big Data – enormous amounts of information from a variety of sources, covering a range of topics – has been recognized as a resource for evaluating the impact and benefit of development projects. Increasingly, implementers, governments, and citizens are working in concert to use this data to shape domestic policy and multilateral programming.But what if we could use Big Data to not only influence national programming and international procedures; what if we harness Big Data to secure physical and material peace and security for all?

We're beyond excited to announce that, last night, we officially launched the new (and we're proud to say, improved!) OpenGov Hub. We've all been trickling in and getting settled over the last two months, but we're finally ready to (re)take the open government space by storm.

We’re thrilled to announce the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative has awarded a $1.9 million grant to the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. As a Strauss Center research partner, Development Gateway will support the exploration of complex emergencies in Asia by creating a series of new dashboards to support high-level geospatial analysis and modeling. We hope to learn about the particular dynamics of these emergencies, and how we might build government capacity to respond to and prevent them.

Development Gateway is delighted to welcome Chad to the global Aid Management Program family. Chad marks our 24th AMP country, our 16th African partner government, and another of our 20+ UNDP-supported AMP programs. We are looking forward to a productive partnership in the years to come.

Today, the African Development Bank (AfDB) released MapAfrica – a dynamic online...