UN report calls for humanitarian organisations to publish IATI data

A new UN report on humanitarian financing calls on aid organisations and donors to commit to publishing IATI data.

The report from the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing calls for “a specific timebound commitment by the international community to provide open and transparent data, including on transaction costs, published on a single global platform—with IATI compatible data at its core”.

The panel, appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki‑moon, says this commitment could help “reduce transaction costs and increase effectiveness”.

More financial transparency is one of the panel’s key recommendations and they call for “aid organisations and donors to commit to providing timely reporting to a global common data platform (and donors should require all their partners to do the same), adhering to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard.”

The final report, “Too important to fail – addressing the humanitarian financing gap”, was submitted to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki‑moon on 17 January and its recommendations will help frame the discussion at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016.

This report represents groundbreaking progress for our work in improving humanitarian reporting. The recent upgrade to version 2.02 makes the IATI 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.