IATI Chair: Members' Assembly 2019 round-up

This post is written by IATI Chair, Theo van de Sande about the Members’ Assembly 2019 (Brussels 11-12 September).

In my capacity as Chair of the IATI Governing Board, I would like to extend a big thank you to the 111 IATI members and observers who joined us in Brussels last week for the 2019 Members’ Assembly (MA), our biggest MA to date. Travelling from near and far and engaging in lively discussions demonstrated your commitment to IATI and placed our initiative on a bold and forward-looking track during an exciting time.

During last week’s meeting, we endorsed a five-year Strategic Plan that was inclusively developed and extensively consulted, incorporating feedback from many of you. It is my sincere belief that this plan allows us to anticipate and be ready for the next generation of partnership and data needs, ensuring that IATI continues to respond to the ever-evolving open data and transparency agendas, and supports all partners to increase their use of development and humanitarian data. In the coming months, the Governing Board will be working to develop a 2020 work plan to meet IATI’s strategic objectives, paying close attention to the priorities we determined together in Brussels, and we will be back in touch with members as this work moves forward.

The technical work we’ve achieved together with our partners this year is coming to fruition, and the new Datastore and Validator tools showcased last week will soon be launched and ready to use. These key tools are eagerly anticipated as essential components of our strategy to increase data quality and use.

The technical work we’ve achieved together with our partners this year is coming to fruition, and the new Datastore and Validator tools showcased last week will soon be launched and ready to use.

Another significant achievement was our agreement on different ways of strengthening our community, through a combination of formal working groups and informal communities of practice. We’ll work on fleshing out more details to make these exciting ideas a reality.

I was also very encouraged to hear the stories shared by our members and many new observers, particularly those from the Global South, about how IATI data is supporting real change in peoples’ lives. These cases represent some of the best evidence on how IATI data is supporting better impact for development and humanitarian activities worldwide.

I mentioned to you all that IATI will be holding its next round of Governing Board elections during the coming year, and I would like to encourage members to think about coming forward to share in this rewarding work.

While we will be sharing minutes and more information on next steps in due course, I look forward to working with all of you to implement the ambitious strategy and objectives we agreed together in Brussels.

Finally, let me once more thank our hosts at the European Commission and the European Investment Bank for hosting our three days of productive meetings, not to mention the wonderful hospitality of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.