As Technology Delivery Partner for IATI, we worked with the United Nations Development Programme to develop State of the Data – a practical methodology for exploring what the initiative makes possible, and how to improve it.
Development and humanitarian work depends on people being able to understand what is happening, who is involved, and where to find reliable information. Since 2008, the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) has brought together a wide range of organisations to publish open, standardised data about development and humanitarian activities.
As the volume of IATI data has grown, we’ve seen a familiar challenge emerge: it can be difficult to see – in concrete terms – what this data enables, and where improvements can make the most difference.
We designed State of the Data as a repeatable, practical methodology to examine what the data enables in practice, and where improvements can make the most difference. It helps the IATI community – including the Secretariat, Members and data users – focus effort where it will have the most impact. This, in turn, supports better coordinated and more effective development and humanitarian action.
Our approach
The State of the Data series treats data quality as a question of data use. Rather than assessing data quality as a static score, we focused on a small number of specific qualities that play an important role in how people use IATI data – each chosen because it has a direct impact on whether data can be found, connected and used in practice.
First, context: we looked at over 440,000 unique document links in IATI data to see whether they reliably connect users to contextual information about activities.
Second, connection: we mapped 17,000 organisation references, exploring how organisations are identified, and how easily data can be networked across systems.
Third, timing: we looked at 884,000 unique activities to explore how the frequency and timeliness of publication shapes how data can be used.
Each theme began with analysis, published as an interactive data story and supported by openly available code. The aim was to make patterns visible and discussable, rather than to produce a verdict.
Crucially, the analysis was only the starting point. Each activity was followed by dialogues that brought together a wide range of perspectives across the IATI community. These conversations explored what the findings meant in practice, helped build shared understandings of IATI data, and identified where improvements could be tested. More than 60 people took part in each dialogue.
Importantly, State of the Data is structured as a cycle of inquiry and dialogue, allowing questions and methods to evolve as the series continues.
The result
Looking at IATI data through this lens has already led to ideas that people can act on: in how they publish data, in the tools that help them explore it, and in how the initiative itself thinks about improvement.
For example, the work on document links examined nearly half a million unique documents published by over 900 organisations, and found that only 57% could be accessed by automated tools. This shifted the focus from simply adding links to asking questions about access and reuse – an issue that matters increasingly as automated tools are used to search and analyse information. The findings and community dialogue led to the idea of an IATI Document Store, and the development of publishing guidance to improve how documents are shared.
We applied the same approach to organisation references and timeliness. In each case, focusing on using IATI data helped to identify where targeted changes could make IATI data easier to work with, informing new tooling, guidance, and proposals for updates to the IATI Standard.
State of the Data is designed to continue over time, using the same methodology to look at different aspects of how IATI data can be used, and where further improvements can have the greatest impact. More recent work on State of the Data has looked at subnational location data, and is already adapting the methodology to open up engagement earlier in the process. We’ve worked directly with specialist communities – including MAPME-Initiative and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team – to help shape the analysis and guide future improvements to the IATI Standard.
Why it matters
Taken together, the State of the Data sessions demonstrate a repeatable way for complex data initiatives to learn and improve: start with how data is used in practice, identify specific leverage points, combine analysis with dialogue, and translate insights into next steps.
By focusing on the qualities of data that matter in practice, the programme offers a repeatable way for complex data initiatives to learn, adapt and focus attention where it can make the most difference.