New Directions in 2016

IATI has come a long way since its launch in 2008, and 2016 presents exciting opportunities for the initiative to evolve in new directions.

Improving humanitarian reporting

The first World Humanitarian Summit being held in May this year presents a good opportunity to promote IATI’s recent work to enable the Standard to better capture data on humanitarian crises. Our recently launched version 2.02 makes the Standard fit for purpose for the humanitarian community, and this year we will encourage IATI publishers to use the new version to report timely and comprehensive data on their humanitarian activities.

Supporting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

IATI is well-placed to support governments in meeting and monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals at country level. Version 2.02 of the Standard now allows reporting of progress against the SDGs, and we will be encouraging IATI publishers to use new fields on goals, and/or targets and indicators. We will also promote d-portal, developed by IATI and Development Initiatives, as a ready-made tool for tracking international resource flows at country level.

Joined-Up Data Alliance

2015 saw the launch of the new Joined-up Data Alliance and, as a member, IATI looks forward to working with this coalition of open data standards setters, users and advocates on matters of mutual interest to the development and usage of data standards. Through the Alliance, IATI will share learning and experiences, take a collective approach to solving technical issues of organisation identifiers and standard interoperability, and promote wider use of IATI data.  

New governance structure and strategic vision

2016 will see the implementation of bold decisions made at last month’s Steering Committee meeting on IATI’s governance, strategic vision and brand. These include the creation of a new Member Assembly and a Governing Board and a new vision and three year strategic framework for IATI, based on the findings of the 2015 IATI evaluation.