AidStream: For Accountability and Transparency
Aid transparency ensures efficient and effective use of aid by development partners. It helps to amplify the quality of decision making and planning for development. Transparency and accountability go hand in hand in development. Citizens and other stakeholders alike have the right to information with regard to development works related to public interest. Development partners committed toward transparency are committed towards development.
Gap in aid data publishing
A significant gap in aid data publishing is because organisations are not reporting their data formally. Though the IATI standard is increasingly gaining traction and major development partners have adopted the standard, the vast majority of development actors have yet to embrace it.
Among other things, the lack of information and tracking of development flows hinders development. Decision makers cannot make informed decisions,
Aid data transparency and the IATI Standard
The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) is a set of rules and guidance about the data organisations should publish and the format to publish it in. Any organisation from governments to private sectors wishing to become transparent can become an IATI publisher. The IATI Standard guides organisations to provide detailed information necessary for an organisation to be accountable for their activities and to partake directly or indirectly in decision making. The IATI Standard is increasingly becoming the standard for publishing aid data.
Back in 2008 when the IATI standard first came into existence, there was a clear need to build a tool to ease the process of publishing to the IATI standard. While publishers were interested in moving towards transparency with the help of a common standard (the IATI standard) they still faced a hurdle. Most of them were short of manpower to use the eXtensive Markup Language — the format in which data is published to the IATI standard.
The solution was evident- a tool to make the process of IATI reporting simpler and easier for the reporter. Hence, AidStream was initiated.
At AidStream, we’re about solving problems
Apart from the obvious of being a tool for the IATI standard, AidStream sees the need and importance of aid data publishing. We understand the power of data and how it can be used for the greater good. In 2022, AidStream is the most used tool by organisations to publish their aid data.
Nearly a decade after the initiation, we have become more than a tool to publish data to the IATI standard. We are a community of over 1700 organisations working towards a common goal of transparency and accountability. We act as an institutional memory for organisations’ data. We strive to maintain data quality of our users so that the data users can make proper use of the data.
Development partners are welcome to join our ever growing community and make us their partners to become aid-data transparent and accountable.
