Transparency seems to be the new standard in the development aid industry. After facing harsh criticism in recent years for being ineffective and wasteful, many NGOs now prioritise openness and honesty over how they spend their money. And it’s not only NGOs opening up, this week the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands announced that the majority of data about Dutch aid budgets will be accessible to the general public. But in order to make sense of the data, an app must be built.

By Ruben Koops

After the UK, the Netherlands is the second country to publish its development data online. Mark Tiele Westra works for the Akvo Foundation, an NGO that promotes the publication of donor data. “This is going to be interesting as soon as more donor organisations publish their data online. Imagine if you could see exactly how much money was spent on AIDS prevention by donor countries in a certain region in Kenya.  This will make development aid much more transparent.”

During a summit in Accra, Ghana in 2008, the International Aid Transparancy Initiative was created in order to publish as much development data as possible. In February of this year, a method was agreed upon by which all participating countries and NGO’s could publish their data.

Goals
The most important reason for publishing all this data is to empower the recipients of aid money. Westra: “Now people in developing countries can see for themselves how much money their governments receive from the West.” The Aid Transparency Initiative can also help countries to crack down on corruption. “I have heard that an Ugandan cabinet secretary was able to reduce corruption in healthcare by informing local villages how much money their hospitals receive. If you are open about the way money is spent, less money will be held back by crooked officials.”

But Jan Marchal, a former program manager with a large Dutch NGO and now a critic of the aid industry, is skeptical. “I seriously like the idea of opening up the sector, but I don’t see how the recipients of aid benefit from this. People in most developing countries are not paying taxes. How could they hold their governments responsible for the use of funds coming from abroad?” Marchal also thinks that the aid data is just another initiative to strengthen the aid industry. “The real discussion should be about the impact of funding projects in developing countries. If open data can trigger that debate, it could be meaningful.”

'Investment'
According to Nebenhat Albayrak, chairwoman of the committee for Foreign Affairs in the Dutch Parliament, the support for development aid amongst Dutch taxpayers is not obvious anymore. “That’s why we need maximum transparency.”

Marchal: “It seems to be that the open data initiative is created primarily for Western consumers, in order for them to ‘check’ on their aid ‘investment’. But reality is complex; in recipient countries problems cannot be solved simply with money.”

App
The open data initiative doesn’t deliver a finished product. The raw data must be used through applications in order for consumers to make sense of the information. Maarten Jongmans, project manager for the IT service provider Rotterdam CS sees endless opportunities. “This data is extremely easy to use. I can see a market for apps based on this data.”

For the open data initiative to function properly, the program needs as much data as possible. That's why NGO’s will also have to provide their budget information. SNV, a large NGO operating in 35 developing countries said in response to questions from Radio Netherlands that it supports the principle of open data, and it’s open to the initiative. Currently, only one NGO has provided data.

Akvo’s Mark Tiele Westra is working on a basic app to make the data easy to navigate through, but private parties will have to develop more complicated apps.  Jongmans: “NGO’s can order an app that for example visualizes the amount of aid versus the progress a country makes. I would love to work with this data.”