Stories, ideas, and updates from DGers around the world

On Nov. 8-9, 54 software developers representing 17 nationalities gathered at the European Parliament in Brussels for the EUHackathon “Hack4Transparency!” event.  Teams of developers competed in a 24-hour marathon coding session to create new tools that enable transparency and accountability in the information age. According to the event organizers, this was the first time that

“Tech@State: Data Visualization” took place on Sept. 23, 2011 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.  The event was organized by the U.S. Department of State, Development Gateway, AidData and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. The conference presented speakers, panelists and guests with the opportunity to explore new and innovative data visualization

A panel discussion on “Open Data, Open Knowledge, Open Solutions,” hosted by the World Bank Institute on September 22, served as a platform for participants to discuss the multifaceted dimensions of open data in international development. It focused on global interconnectedness, free information flows, new technologies, and greater openness. Panelists explored different avenues to further empower individuals and to create new solutions to global development challenges.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) and AidData recently released a data set containing the sub-national locations of all AfDB projects continent-wide approved from 2009-2010. The data, available at Open.AidData, represent more than $10 billion in AfDB Group funding to 43 African countries.

This Story from the Field comes from Anna Lauridsen of Development Gateway International. She tells us about her participation in the Open Data for Development Camp held in Amsterdam in May: The Open Data for Development Camp was put together by Open for Change, a network based in the Netherlands committed to transparency, collaboration and impact in development, on request by the Dutch Foreign Ministry. I was there to present the geocoding work that Development Gateway and the AidData team have done. At the heart…

The Open Data for Development Camp (ODDC), hosted by Open for Change in Amsterdam from May 12-13, proved to be a fantastic forum for discussion of practical issues in institutionalizing open data practices. Participants generally agreed that open development data should be a core component of a paradigm shift towards increased transparency, accountability, and public participation in development practice.

Last week, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and AidData launched an interactive map showing the precise locations of the AfDB’s ongoing operations in Cameroon, Morocco, and Tanzania.

PRESS RELEASE Lisbon and Washington, DC—June 9, 2011— At its Annual Meetings, being held from June 9-10 in Lisbon, the African Development Bank Group unveiled an interactive map showing the precise locations of its ongoing operations in Cameroon, Morocco, and Tanzania (http://184.73.156.57/afdbprojects/). These countries represent a subset of the 2,040 activities financed across the continent since 2009. The map is the result of a partnership between the African Development Bank (AfDB) and AidData (www.aiddata.org) to geocode AfDB projects, which range from building primary schools, health…

PRESS RELEASE

Development Gateway has worked with Mozambique since 2008 to update and expand its aid information management system, known as ODAmoz. ODAmoz was created in 2005 as a way to coordinate and harmonize donor activities in Mozambique. The system allows each of Mozambique’s donor focal points to enter data directly into the ODAmoz system, significantly reducing transaction costs for the government in terms of collecting aid information from donors. Once a project is entered into ODAmoz, the information is published on the ODAmoz site, so that…