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Will the longer-term response be for covid-19 or more generally for public health infrastructures / data infrastructures / DRR / debt / unemployment / etc. Aren’t the latter all covered in existing architectures?
I would argue that where IATI should now be delivering is where we failed with the Haiyan typhoon and the Kathmandhu earthquake: timely responsiveness. For me, putting a flag in the title is not a classification but a communication.
I would agree with Bill’s comment. Changing a title isn’t a classification but just to reiterate, it may be all some of us can do in the short-term. I recognize it is only a start and still leads to inconsistency of use as some publishers can’t change titles and for some that is all we can do. I think the multifaceted option approach is needed at this time. I just hope the users understand and can make it work.
Thanks for this discussion everyone
I also agree using the ’tag element may be interesting, with a GLIDE code if possible
I also appreciate the points around on communication vs classification. There’s heavy focus on the title element - but let’s not also forget we have a bunch of narrative possibilities via the description element combined with & the DescriptionType codelist…
We are all trying to figure this out, think through scenarios, and learn from each other, I hope. Thanks to @rory_scott for openly sharing his thoughts and challenges, and for the positive contributions that build on this.
And - I echo the appreciation of the @IATI-techteam to act swiftly and inclusively.
Hi All,
Thanks for the interesting discussion and suggestions.
I’ve been thinking about how to report on IATI funds diverted from existing development projects to COVID-19 activities. I know @stolk would be in favour of creating a new activity and I understand the rationale behind this idea. However, I think it’s also important to track the shift of resources from longer term development activities to COVID-19 - at least I know my organisation would be interested in this type of analysis.
Based on Option 2 (either @rory_scott or @shi’s version), I thought this could be represented in the following way - please shout if this doesn’t make sense, I’d be really interested in your opinion.
[Please note this an opinion from a non-techie (clearly reflected in the language :)) and AidStream publisher]
-> Add GLIDE code as tag
-> Add Outgoing commitment transaction reflecting the amount of funds diverted to COVID-19 activities and add ‘COVID-19’ in the transaction description/reference (as suggested by @stevieflow). Adjust amount of original outgoing commitment transaction(s) accordingly. Ideally this should show on the budget but there aren’t narrative fields in the budget section.
-> Update sector percentages to reflect thematic shift (using the null value if there aren’t any appropriate codes).
Could datastore queries be built around these criteria (similar to the 360Giving covid tracker flagged by @stevieflow )? Or d-portal searches? Or new tools/data viz (thinking about what @markbrough is working on at DI)?
I hope this makes sense!
Anna
Greatly appreciate IATI-techteam for the quick response to COVID-19 and a super helpful webinar on COVID-19 reporting guidance!
Also thank you all for the great discussion & suggestions!
For the 3 options proposed during the webinar:
Include ‘COVID-19’ in the title: as many have mentioned, this would be the low hanging fruit and can probably be implemented quickly by many publishers. We (UNICEF) can implement this fairly quickly, with the caveat that there could be activities missing ‘COVID-19’ text in the title or spelled in various ways
Humanitarian flag: I share the concern that COVID activity span humanitarian and development (almost cross-cutting). It feels like this option is force fitting all COVID activities to humanitarian bucket. From user perspective, some clear explanation will be needed, and is there anyway to filter out ‘true humanitarian’ activities (i.e. excluding COVID development) from the data if that’s the use case? That said, however, this is also fairly straightforward for us to implement.
Humanitarian scope element (GLIDE and HRP): we won’t be able to implement as we use vocabulary code ‘99’.
On the option of using ‘tag’ element for COVID reporting. Agree with many discussions above that it would be a clean solution. However, ‘tag’ element is introduced in 2.03 schema and is only published by few publishers. We would not be able to follow the guidance at the moment either (publishing to 2.02 schema). Also ‘tag’ element would not solve the problem of quantification (budget), as there is no @percentage attribute.
I’d like to entertain the idea of using sector code (I believe @rory_scott also mentioned briefly). Sector vocabulary has ‘98’ and ‘99’ for ‘reporting organization’, one of which can be used for COVID. And @percentage attribute is available for sector element so quantification is possible as well. Any thoughts on this?
Thank you!
Jieru
Thank you all for these very engaging discussions. I am really impressed how rapidly and well-structured the tech team have been in bringing this together, guidance, data store, d-portal and all. I’m joining the discussion in the last minute… hopefully to spark a late discussion when we all have had more time to get a grip of the situation.
Thank you @rory_scott for bringing forward some concrete examples to base the discussion on. I’m a bit concerned with the suggestions of changing the standard for an imperfect fit. So I am inclined to reject option 1 and 3. But I would go a little bit further with suggesting a 99 vocabulary. The humanitarian Glide-numbers will be limited to humanitarian activities. If we are opening up to the risk of typos, why don’t we open up for some more flexibility, and codes that are a little bit easier to follow (because, let’s face it, how many reporting officers will get “EP-2020-000012-001” right?). Sure, for those organizations that have the humanitarian reporting integrated with the development assistance reporting, there might already be a built in drop-down list with Glide numbers. But I’m assuming this is not the case for most. An alternative marker would have to be used and then adjustments will need to be made to the reporting organization’s IATI file generators. Once again, quite an adjustment for an imperfect solution. And… as @markbrough pointed out, there are not that many publishers already using this.
I base my arguments on two points; 1) we need to be pragmatic and 2) to distinguish between communication and measuring/classification.
In Tanzania I remember a workshop where hashtags were suggested as an option in Humanitarian reporting, given that there was little time for the field workers to meticulously fill in an excel sheet or other reporting system.
Would it not be able to give a suggested list of hashtags to be used that would give a little more depth to a pragmatic communicative approach? The reason I suggest hashtags is that they are understood by a wider community as something to tag information and the importance of spelling it correctly. That way the programmer could hashtag if it is a redirection of the original activity and even give an indication of how much and under what period. It could also held to distinguish between humanitarian and development activities.
For example for an activity that has 20% of the funding directed toward Covid for the 2020 budget could tag in the title or description alongside the original title and description #Covid19 #redirected #2020 #20percent.
Not all organizations have the business model where it makes sense to break the redirection of funds to new activities. But it sure would make it easier, still, the discontinued activity also needs to record that it was changed due to the redirections. Otherwise the results etc. will look completely out of place.
I am aware that the hashtag idea goes against the idea of safeguarding the standard and code lists (this list to be owned by who?), but the situation is obviously extraordinary. It might very well be long term effects, as @reidmporter pointed out, not just by the virus, but also aftermaths of funding being cut down in other areas to meet the crisis… and not to mention the effect of (possible) lower GNI’s of donor countries. This might very well be data we are going to be living with and analyzing for a long time to come in a variety of use cases. More long term solutions require a balance against other statistical values. I haven’t looked into it personally, but I bet there are considerations to be made in relation to sectors and Aid types etc. So…
+1 Yay #hashtags (or any tags)
Also highlighting that many of these issues were faced during the Napal Earthquake, Ebola etc - so let’s also not make the mistake of just limit ourselves by the need for something right now in the discussions, i.e. I know not all publishers can do tags right now, but we also need to fix this for the next crisis so that we are not having this same discussion again.
HI All, very valuable discussion and suggestions.
When reading through all answers and suggestions how to tag/flag development activities as COVID-19 response related, I started reflecting how we will be able to distinguish between unfolding COVID-19 pandemic response project, protracted response to COVID-19 pandemic impact project and a development response to COVID-19 pandemic.
I understand the need for a longer term tag option, but really wonder when and if we will be able to agree we deal with COVID-19 development activity.
COVID-19 is a typical NEXUS challenge in my view, we may as well consider as humanitarian throughout the crisis lifecycle.
Looking forward to your reactions.
Leo
The glidenumber.net site was updated this week, and now appears to include codes for each affected country (i.e. EP-2020-000012-*). However, global code EP-2020-000012-001 hasn’t been added. I don’t know if this is significant?