Posts categorized Open Data

The Independent Expert Advisory Group on the “Data revolution for development” is giving you only a few days to share your views on what a “revolution” should look like. So here’s your chance to be a revolutionary, channel your inner Beatle per the Data Revolution Group, and act quickly because the deadline is October 15th!

Since its very beginning, Development Gateway has been committed to open data initiatives, and without a doubt great strides have been made in open data acceptance and adoption. More and more development organizations, practitioners, and national governments have begun publishing all sorts of programmatic and financial information.

This is a modified version of a post originally published on Open Nepal’s blog, authored by Anjesh Tuladhar.No one would disagree with the fact that proactive disclosure of public contracts by public agencies improves service delivery, curbs corruption, and helps monitoring. Laura Bacon says open contracting could be a game changer.

Development Gateway’s dgMarket was one of the first global e-procurement platforms. Since 2003, dgMarket has aggregated tender notices, contract awards and bidding documents from national governments and development agencies. dgMarket now lists over a million opportunities every year from 170 countries, representing around $1 trillion in government procurement.

I often get asked how AidData takes vast stores of development finance information and translates them into something that can be easily understood by the public. Last week, we published our geocoded data on aid flows to Nepal via the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) registry. Now anyone can easily download the data from our IATI publisher page or aiddata.org to understand who is funding what and where.

We are all familiar with the patterns of supply and demand. For many who are asked to supply open data, the question of demand is a bit more complex than one might initially think. Since the “open”part of open data implies that users shouldn’t need to pay for access to the data, it is harder to gauge what the data are worth to people.

In the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake, the international community pledged billions of dollars to support Haiti’s reconstruction efforts. The Government of Haiti has made significant strides over the past few years in innovating better methods to ensure this aid is responsive to changing needs and demands on the ground.

As Jed Miller recently noted in The Guardian, making data available online doesn’t mean much on its own. It is a necessary first step in the open data movement, but information is valuable only when it can be used. That means getting the right data in front of the right people.

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

Geocoding (turning the location of development activities into coordinates that enable accurate placement on a map) has long been high on the agenda for those interested in the traceability of funding for development projects.rnrnWith this objective in mind, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is geocoding its entire portfolio of activities, by mapping the exact location of the operations it finances. This will also help the institution better integrate its actions with other national open data and geospatial initiatives, principally the Open Aid Partnership, USAID, and AidData.