IATI begins ambitious five-year plan to transform global transparency

The start of 2026 marks a new phase for the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), as it begins delivering its Strategic Plan 2026–2030.

The plan moves IATI beyond its role as a data publishing platform. It sets out a stronger ambition for IATI as a driver of transparency, mutual accountability, and real-world impact across international cooperation.

Approved by IATI members in November 2025, the Strategic Plan outlines how open data and transparency can better support the development and humanitarian system at a time of growing global challenges. With progress on the Sustainable Development Goals off track, climate impacts intensifying, and trust in the multilateral system under pressure, the need for timely, reliable data has never been greater.

The plan sets out a renewed vision for how transparency can support better decisions, stronger coordination, and better outcomes for people and the planet.

Advancing transparency through collaboration and partnership

As IATI begins delivering its new Strategic Plan, the initiative looks forward to strengthening collaboration and partnerships across international cooperation.

IATI will continue to work closely with its existing community — including partner country governments, bilateral donors, multilateral agencies, and civil society — while also expanding its outreach to engage newer actors, such as philanthropies, the private sector, and ESG investors.

The Strategic Plan includes a new value proposition that sets out a renewed approach for working with these stakeholders. This approach is grounded in open data, shared learning, and practical collaboration, supporting transparency, coordination, and better-informed decision-making across the system.

Getting started: turing the Strategic Plan into action

As delivery of the Strategic Plan 2026–2030 gets underway, IATI is beginning work across its action areas:

• Action Area A: strengthening country-level data use
• Action Area B: enhancing IATI’s data quality and infrastructure
• Action Area C: championing transparency and accountability, and
• Action Area D promoting the use of IATI data to inform policy and decision-making.

Early activity includes work to reimagine how IATI data quality is defined and improved, recognising that data quality means different things to different users depending on how the data is used in practice.

This work is being taken forward through a phased data quality roadmap for 2026, starting with consultations in Q1 with partner country governments, donors, humanitarian actors, civil society, and researchers. Feedback from these consultations will inform new, more user-centred diagnostics, which will be integrated into the IATI Dashboard later in the year. This work provides an early example of how the Strategic Plan is moving from strategy to action.

As implementation of the Strategic Plan progresses, IATI looks forward to working with the global development and humanitarian community, including both long-standing members and new partners. Updates on progress, upcoming events, and opportunities to engage will be shared throughout 2026.

Read more about IATI’s Strategic Plan 2026 - 2030.