Stories, ideas, and updates from DGers around the world

This week, DG will be participating in the International Open Data Conference (IODC). While we will be attending an extensive mix of events – and focusing on gender issues in open data – we hope to see you at the following sessions in particular.

Development Gateway (DG) is proud to launch the Administrative Data-Driven Decisions (AD3) program, supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Through this program, DG will work with governments in East and West Africa to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and use of administrative data systems.

As we've covered before, DG is pleased to be supporting the advancement of Open Contracting (OC) and enhancing data use in Senegal and Uganda. Through the Hewlett Foundation, we'll be completing a series of data use projects over the next two years, collaborating with local actors and developing tools to take existing open contracting efforts to the next level. In Senegal, we're working with the Autorité de Régulation des Marchés Publics (ARMP) and civil society partners to support the Government of Senegal and other key stakeholders in using procurement data to enhance procurement results.

Geography and accessibility to services hold significant weight in identifying comprehensive strategies to sustainably control the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Open Geospatial Data Center for Health (OpenDCH) project, supported by PEPFAR, aims to advance analysis of where the most affected communities are located, to focus on closing gaps in HIV testing and treatment. It will serve to improve understanding of HIV program coverage at the community level — leading to improved adherence, retention, and targeting of services.

Later this month, we’ll be attending the International Open Data Conference (IODC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Made possible by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, DG is pleased to the financial holder of travel grants that are supporting a selected group of women to join us at IODC. In doing so, we’ve partnered with the Open Heroines network, an online group of women in open government, civic tech, and open data that is driving the facilitation of each grant award.

Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the Accra Agenda for Action, we have conducted an AMP Retrospective on the DG blog. As our final Retrospective post, we are pleased to announce that DG has opened the source code of the Aid Management Platform (AMP). The now-public AMP source code is licensed under the GPLv3 open source license, which allows users to use and edit the software freely. 

“The Future is Open” is this year’s IODC theme, with the conference focusing on innovative solutions and opportunities for collaboration to inspire real progress in the years ahead. Critical to this progress is ensuring that data accurately reflects all citizens and their diversity of experiences, needs, barriers, and aspirations. But we know that open data continues to struggle to capture this for an entire half of the population: women.

DG recently participated in Elimika Wikiendi, an open online space for Kiswahili speakers to discuss issues including health, research, development, and technology in Tanzania and East Africa. The platform educates, raises awareness, and prompts online dialogue using the hashtag #ElimikaWikiendi.

We know that Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) aims to support accountability and learning, in order to drive better outcomes. Through the Results Data Initiative (RDI), we’ve approached M&E with a critical eye – how can we better allocate M&E funding, and what results are we really striving for?

In May 2005, the Government of Ethiopia launched the inaugural Aid Management Platform (AMP). Since then, a community of over 25 partner governments has seen each technical change and enhancement come to fruition, playing a crucial role in shaping each program iteration. Today, we’re providing an overview of AMP’s technical evolution, outlining challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned from building a large-scale, needs-driven product for our partners.