[open-government] Fwd: Swedish aid data open and internationally comparable

[Jonathan Gray]

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 Swedish aid data open and internationally comparable****

*Sweden is the fourth country to join the so-called IATI standard, which
means that statistics and records of Swedish development cooperation are
freely available and comparable with data from other countries and donors
who take part in the initiative. This means that information can be
downloaded to create databases and applications to give an overview of aid
and make it possible to compare the different countries with each other.****
*

The main advantages with this open standard for publishing digital
information on development cooperation in The International Aid
Transparency Initiative (IATI) is that the information is more current and
prospective, as well as comparable to other partners and donors. It
contains past, present and planned activities of major international
organizations like the World Bank and national development cooperation
agencies like Sida as well as small civil society organisation projects.

In total, eleven organisations have begun to publish aid data in the IATI
registry and a score of other organisations and countries are underway.
This opens up for the development of systems and solutions which can
display and visualize the IATI-formatted data. This is of interest to
actors within development cooperation, donors and partner countries that
need tools to plan, review and follow up on activities. However, in the end
this benefits those who pay for the assistance - the taxpayers - and the
people reached by the assistance.****

 - In this way, donor and non-governmental organisations as well as
recipients can become aware that transparency is a prerequisite for
effective aid. With open data on programs and projects, it is easier for
partners and other stakeholders to follow what the different donors are
doing and what is working well. This takes accountability to a new level,
says Joachim Beijmo, Director of Communications at Sida, the Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency .****

The fact that a country or an organisation follows the IATI standard does
not mean that the statistics is published in a new database, but it is a
way to describe the assistance work according to standards and definitions
that already exist. This means for example that a recipient country can
read data in the same mode from all donors with which the country
cooperates.****

 ****

*For more information or interviews, please contact the Sida Press Office,
tel (+)46-8-698 55 55 or e-mail us at press at sida.se*****

*Facts about the IATI standard*****

• All contributing organisations publish IATI-formatted XML files and make
the latest version available to the IATI secretariat, who review and
approve files. Once this is done the data is available from the IATI
registry. Each file contains data from one publisher and a country or a
region.
• The Swedish transparency also means that data is available with an open
API (Application Programming Interface). This means that anyone can view
data and create new applications and visualizations of the aid data
presented. Using standard techniques such as REST and JSON, it is possible
for researchers, journalists, students and the public to present, visualize
and interpret data. The information may be used freely. ****

** **



-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
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