Practical IATI use cases for humanitarians: miniTAG in April?

Events
#1

Dear IATI community,
at TU Delft we have a small project on IATI, together with Cordaid, a durch organisation for humanitarian aid and development. We are developing a software prototype that combines IATI data with HDX/HXL data to address information needs of humanitarian field workers. Probably mid/end of April this year, we would like to present our work, why we did it, how we did it and what our results until then are. In a broader sense, the IATI community could use the event to talk about IATI use cases in the humanitarian ‘world’, besides reporting. We thought of organising an IATI miniTAG at TU Delft and would invite interested people to join physically/virtually.

Of course, IATI is first and foremost about transparency and accountability in international development financing. But we specifically wanted to look for an additional use case that would create tangible results for humanitarians in the field. I just wanted to use this forum to sound out the interest within the community. So please let us know here if you would be interested in joining in April :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks!
David

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#2

I wouldn’t say “but” - this is very important. Transparency is a means to enable the humanitarian sector to use data to achieve better results. I look forward to hearing more about your work! I really cannot promise that Canada will attend in person, but will share the details with colleagues and encourage participation at least virtually.

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#3

Hi David,

When in April? And we did some basic data exploration on HXL/IATI. What kind of software prototype are you working on? Some additional information on the why and the how would be more than welcome.

Thanks, Siem

#4

Hi @YohannaLoucheur and @siemvaessen, Reid from InterAction and Petya from the IATI Technical Team contacted me and we will see how we can work together on the possible miniTAG. Best would be around mid/end of April.

Regarding the tool: its currently under development and we plan to reach prototype status in April (incl. a small evaluation with experts in the field). The development is part of a small 6-months project which ends in April. The whole idea is to see how IATI data (and its combination with HDX data) can be utilized for improved humanitarian information work in the field. What will happen after April? We plan to open source the tool so interested parties can further contribute, enhance, test it. We have online volunteers included in the development right now. We have defined some use cases the prototype should be able to address, e.g. “who is working on relief reconstruction in a particular disaster affected area?”, “how many female fatalities are recorded in a particular area?” We are working on a Python API backend to collect and combine IATI and HXL data. Data is stored in Postgres. For the client we work with JavaScript.

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#5

Hi everyone, just letting you know the planning of a possible miniTAG on humanitarian use cases is currently ongoing. The event is supposed to take place later this year, earliest in September. Three main aspects of the event would be:

  • to discuss benefits and raise awareness of IATI reporting for humanitarian organisations
  • discuss how IATI can address information needs during humanitarian field work
  • the combination of IATI with humanitarian data initiatives: FTS, HDX/HXL

Feel free to input/raise issues important for you under this post. We will get back with updates.

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#6

Hi @dpaulus - just wanted to check if this is still going ahead?

#7

Hi @stevieflow I can confirm that there is still planning ongoing for a humanitarian mini Tag in Sept/Oct although dates etc. are still to be confirmed but likely to be a few weeks before the main IATI TAG?

#8

Hi @Wendy @dpaulus any news on this?

#9

I just started a Humanitarian AI meetup group in Cambridge for MIT students and local AI researchers and one thing I’d like members to work on as a volunteer project is to help develop an IATI-HXL correlation table. Curious how far you got with yours?

We’re hoping to add an extra column and try creating JSON/Neo4j friendly versions of the tags too.

#10

I just noticed this thread. It would be interesting to hear more about your work. I’m looking at how to store and serve data from a Neo4j database. Brent@beehive.ngo

#11

Hope it’s ok to link to your paper, @dpaulus and more info about @BrentPhillips work for anyone interested.

  1. https://www.tudelft.nl/tbm/over-de-faculteit/afdelingen/multi-actor-systems/research/humtech-lab/humtech-lab/projects/#c266924
  2. https://solve.mit.edu/challenges/frontlines-of-health/solutions/2724