Stories, ideas, and updates from DGers around the world

Honduras recently became the first country in Central America and the second middle-income country to use the Aid Management Platform (AMP, or Plataforma de Gestión de la Ayuda in Spanish). During this initial pilot phase of the project, eleven people from the government’s Secretaría Técnica de Planificación y Cooperación Externa (SEPLAN) have been certified to use the system and four people have become certified administrators.

This Story from the Field comes from Djamila Kerim, a Development Gateway Senior Associate working on the Aid Management Program:This year, I was able to attend the AMP workshop for a second time. The program is growing both with respect to the number of people participating, and the scope of activities we are discussing. This year, there were more than 90 participants from more than 20 countries. Many of them are beginning to see the potential to use AMP as much more than a computer system and more as a process of managing aid flows effectively.

The 4th Aid Management Platform (AMP) Best Practices Workshop was held from Jan. 24-26 in Dakar, Senegal. More than 90 people attended from nineteen AMP countries and several observer countries (you can view photos on our new Flickr photostream).

'This Story from the Field comes from Joshua Powell, a Business Development Associate with Development Gateway focusing on AidData and geocoding work:'

From Nov. 29-Dec. 1, the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness was held in Busan, South Korea. In an interview with the Inter Press Service, Development Gateway CEO Jean-Louis Sarbib hailed the inclusiveness of the forum, with traditional donors acknowledging the broad range of actors now involved in development. The importance of South-South cooperation, he

Today, AidData launched its new and improved website, featuring more content and new data and marking an expansion in the program’s mission and scope. What began as a project to build a new kind of development assistance database has evolved into a broader initiative that aims to increase the accessibility and relevance of development finance information for a wide range of stakeholders.

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.