Stories, ideas, and updates from DGers around the world

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).

We often assume that more Open Data is better – but is it?

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.

In early May, we highlighted the importance of tracking South-South Cooperation (SSC), the exchange of financial and in-kind aid between developing countries. On the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, we wanted to highlight some updates about SSC across the Western Hemisphere.Tracking SSC Spending for Information Accuracy

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.

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?

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.