This discussion is posted on behalf of the IATI Governing Board and deals with the important work underway regarding the review of IATI’s institutional arrangements.
As you know, Powered by Data was hired to develop recommendations for members on the long-term institutional arrangements for IATI from September 2018, when current hosting arrangements come to an end. I am pleased to share with you their final report, which has been posted on IATI’s website and will be presented at the Members’ Assembly together with the Board’s recommendations, for discussion and decision.
Download Powered by Data’s final report in English and French now.
The report is an important contribution to the future governance of IATI, and on behalf of the Board I would like to thank all the people – members of IATI, of the TAG, of the Secretariat - who have taken time to talk with the consultants and provide input to their work.
The Board welcomes members feedback on the consultants’ report. We propose to consider the recommendations in two categories:
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Recommendations that can be implemented while the current hosting arrangement is still in place: 1-3, 5, 6, 8 and 12
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Recommendations that are closely linked to the hosting review and should be considered alongside the options for the review: 4, 7, 9-11, 13 and 14
In coming weeks, the Board would like to organize open consultations with members in order to inform its recommendations for both categories. We are especially interested in members’ views of the options in recommendation 13 concerning the hosting arrangement, but equally welcome members’ thoughts on other aspects of the report.
There will be various ways for members to share their views with the Board and we would encourage frank and open discussion on the report. Members can:
- Participate in webinars that will take place in early September with support from the Secretariat (details to be provided shortly);
- Engage in conversations on Discuss (the forum section of IATI’s website);
- Participate in constituency calls or meetings;
- Provide written comments to a Board member.
You can also contact me by email if you have any questions or suggestions or if you prefer to organise a call with myself or another Board member.
Best regards,
Stephen Potter
Chair, IATI Governing Board
Anna Densham this is not controversial at all. (The report is indeed a little thin on the role of the Technical Team.)
Commercial services are already available in the UK and the Netherlands and are being used by some of the bigger institutions both to publish and visualise data. A number of the new big publishers have made use of private sector support. The Tech Team does not see itself in competition with these companies, but I’m not sure it is in a position to broker or steer between competing services.
What the Tech Team is involved in are efforts to build a repository of tools that can be shared by the whole community. A pot of money dedicated to sharing the development of this repository with the private sector would be a great help in accelerating this process. (There is a widely held misconception that “open source” means “free”: it may be free to use but it takes proper money to build properly.)
If the number of IATI publishers starts to grow exponentially, the majority will be small organisations that are unlikely to be able to afford to pay for technical support, and the Tech Team will not be able to provide one-to-one support for all. For this reason the development of a suite of machine-delivered support services is also one of our highest priorities.