Making the United Nations more open and transparent - Thomas Melin

Making the United Nationsmore open and transparentThomas MelinHead of External Relations, UN-Habitat

The problem with aid data

The solution

Towards a common standardInternational Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) set up in 2008 at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana.

192 publishers since 2011.

DenmarkUnited KingdomFinlandNetherlandsSpain SwedenNorthern Ireland

European UnionWorld BankUN-HabitatUNDPUNOPSUN Women

Action AidOxfamHandicap InternationalMarie StopesNorwegian RefugeeCouncil

IATI registry

Open UN-Habitat Transparency Initiative

Project to make UN-Habitat more transparent and open.

Launched in 2011

Publishing financial and project information as open data.

Funded by Sida.

International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

Open UN-Habitat activities• Publishing IATI data • Internal policies and procedures• Database development• Website development• Staff training

Output: IATI data

• September 2012

• 3rd UN Agency and 75th publisher overall

• 80% of project portfolio published

Output: website

http://open.unhabitat.org

Challenges• Initial fear of transparency• Paper culture• Quality assurance• Project funding allocation• Updating of the database• Mapping data• Dealing with Global Projects

Leading on transparency in the United Nations

UN-Habitat, UNDP and UNOPS held two UN-wide transparency workshops during 2013.

Setting up a UN Working Group on Transparency.

UN-Habitat held transparency workshops with UNEP and UNESCO in 2013.

9 UN agencies have published IATI.

‘Urban Numbers’ website

Aiming to collect the world’s urban statistics in one place.

Publishing open data and presenting it using the latest digital visualization techniques.

Statisticians and digital communications people working together.

Hoping to establish a broad coalition of multilateral institutions, member states, academia, NGOs etc.

Some funding available, but fundraising required.

February 2011 Knowledge Management Quick Wins

“Wanted: A new data revolution”• A New Global Partnership

• Report by the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 development agenda.

• Will influence the new development goals after 2015.

• Strong focus on development data and statistics.

• Calls for improved data collection and dissemination.

• Recommends the establishment of a Global Partnership on Development Data.

The revolution in information technology over the last decade provides an opportunity to strengthen data and statistics for accountability and decision-making purposes. There have been innovative initiatives to use mobile technology and other advances to enable real-time monitoring of development results. But this movement remains largely disconnected from the traditional statistics community at both global and national levels.

The post-2015 process needs to bring them together and start now to improve development data.

- The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

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Thank you