Photo Credit: Gabriel Inchauspe
Blog

Stories, ideas, and updates from DGers around the world

The Development Gateway: An IREX Venture blog is where DGers share specific learnings, offer thought-provoking insights, and pose challenging questions for the sustainable development community derived from our work.

Our blog has a deep archive going back to 2005. Each post is a snapshot into our work, priorities, and values.

Analysis, Action, and Learning: Understanding Next Steps for SEMA and Water Point Data

In addition to supporting timely data collection about water access in Tanzania, the Sensors, Empowerment, and Accountability (SEMA) network provides a public-facing District Water Engineer Dashboard. Figure 1: Screenshot of DWE Dashboard Map This dashboard allows key audiences – citizens, District Water Engineers (DWEs), other Ministry of Water and Irrigation officials – to easily view the

November 14, 2017 Data Management Systems and MEL
Innovation
SEMA and Citizen-Generated Data

“Basically, we used to have two methods of getting information on water infrastructure… The first… [was] the water department at the municipal level would visit the villages once or twice a year during the months of June and December to do stock-taking of all water points and their functionality status. “The second method was to

November 7, 2017 Data Management Systems and MEL
Innovation, Open Data
Sensors, Empowerment, and Accountability: Tapping Water Resources in Tanzania

Access to safe water is essential to our health and wellbeing. As an international community, we recognize this as demonstrated by our commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 6, “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.” At the national level, universal access to safe water is a core indicator in Tanzania Vision

October 31, 2017 Data Management Systems and MEL
Innovation, Open Data
Social Good Summit 2017: Technology, Innovation, and a Call to Action

On September 17th, the UN Foundation’s Social Good Summit took place at the 92nd Street Y in NYC as a kickoff to the 72nd Meeting of the UN General Assembly. Entrepreneurs, experts, activists, and SDG Global Goalkeepers gathered in a call to action about how we will integrate technology and innovation into our vision for

October 24, 2017 Global Data Policy
News/Events
Press Release: Open Contracting in East & West Africa

Open contracting aims to enable governments and citizens to more effectively use procurement data in decision making and monitoring of procurement results. While many governments have made commitments to open contracting (OC), their efforts, in a number of instances, have tended to focus on OC compliance. For governments and citizens to realize the potential benefits

October 23, 2017 Open Contracting and Procurement Analytics
News/Events, Procurement
Decision Space and Development Cooperation

This post builds upon a DG contribution to the 2017 OECD Development Cooperation Report, launched on October 17, 2017. All too often, discussions about managing for results in development fail to specify who is managing, what decisions they are authorized to make, or what results data are being used. Identifying the who and whats is

October 18, 2017 Data Management Systems and MEL
Aid Effectiveness & Management, Results Data
Press Release: Endorsing the Principles for Digital Development

We are pleased to announce our endorsement of the Principles for Digital Development. The Principles, of which Digital Impact Alliance is the steward, seek to institutionalize lessons learned in the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) in development projects. They allow practitioners to to integrate best practices into their programs, as well as coordinate

October 12, 2017 Global Data Policy
News/Events
Musings from Buntwani 2017

When data — particularly government data —  is made relevant and available, we as “infomediaries” have an opportunity to create public value. As a community of data users, we are becoming more savvy at turning datasets into information, and information into advocacy for better public resource allocation, transparency and accountability, and good governance.   At

October 10, 2017 Global Data Policy
News/Events, Open Data
Is Your Data OCDS Compliant? Introducing the jOCDS Validator

When it comes to open data, the devil is in the details. Publishing data in an open format is admirable — but in order to be valuable, the data must meet basic criteria for formatting and standardization. That’s why DG is contributing its open source jOCDS Validator to the international open contracting community. Tested with

September 26, 2017 Open Contracting and Procurement Analytics
Procurement
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Using IATI Results Data

It didn’t surprise me when I learned that — when Ministry of Finance officials conduct trainings on the Aid Management Platform for Village Chiefs, CSOs and citizens throughout the districts of Malawi — officials are almost immediately asked: “What were the results of these projects? What were the outcomes?” It didn’t just matter what development

September 19, 2017 Data Management Systems and MEL
Results Data