IATI Value Proposition Statement

The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the World Humanitarian Summit Grand Bargain encourage all development and humanitarian stakeholders to work increasingly in smarter and more collaborative ways to be ever more effective in helping to bring about development, especially to reduce poverty and alleviate suffering. Technology continues to evolve and provide us with new ways to achieve this. Nonetheless technology alone is not enough, and the commitment of stakeholders in these fields is essential if meaningful progress is to be made.

Since IATI’s launch in 2008 at the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness there has been an exciting growth in momentum to share and use data to support our collective efforts towards achieving the SDGs. IATI’s vision is for transparent, good quality information on development resources and results to be available and used by all stakeholder groups to help achieve sustainable development outcomes. As the IATI community, we have the potential to transform the development landscape with rapid growth in the publication and use of data, since IATI’s technical infrastructure is open to all data publishers and users.

The IATI open data standard is a global public good that enables any organisation to publish data that is compatible with data from other IATI publishers, and increasingly, with data about public procurement and public spending. As such, IATI data provides a basis for the essential integration of data on development and humanitarian finance and activities with budget and expenditure and other data in partner countries. It also strengthens financial management and accountability for how the funding is spent and what it delivers.

Joining the IATI community offers organisations around the world the unique opportunity to help make this vision a reality. Our mission is threefold: 1) to ensure transparency of data on development resources and results; 2) to ensure the quality of IATI data continually improves and responds to the needs of all stakeholders and 3) to facilitate access to effective tools and support so that IATI data contributes to the achievement of sustainable development outcomes.

Why join us as a member?

Demonstrate visionary, international leadership: Membership of IATI is a clear statement of commitment to the principles of transparency, implementation of the IATI Standard and helping it to succeed. Being a member of IATI brings reputational benefits and provides a forum in which organisations can showcase their work in using transparency and open data to improve development and humanitarian outcomes. It also gives access to a vibrant network of colleagues for sharing practice and knowledge, collaborating and innovating. IATI’s members are diverse, including civil society, multilateral and bilateral donor organisations, partner country governments and private sector organisations from all corners of the world, all bringing different and essential perspectives to the table.

Make IATI work for you: Being a member provides the opportunity to shape the future of transparency, as IATI is at the forefront of global development transparency efforts. Members steer the initiative by participating in the annual Members’ Assembly and voting on IATI’s priorities, budget, work plan and changes to the IATI Standard. They also share their experience at the annual Members’ Assembly and in other events to shape the evolution of IATI as an open data standard and as a global public good, as well as the architecture of publishing and the ecosystem of tools for accessing and using IATI data.

Be the lifeblood of IATI: Members provide the funding that keeps IATI running. It is essential to continue to maintain and improve IATI’s technical infrastructure (e.g. Registry, Datastore, Dportal), to advocate and provide support for the publication and use of data, and to raise awareness about the contribution of open data to achieving the SDGs. As a public good, IATI’s support services are structured to enable any organisation, no matter how small, to publish and use IATI data. Every new publisher increases the value of everyone else’s data, and of the initiative. It is in our common interest to have as many publishers and users of the data as possible, to ensure that the technical infrastructure facilitates this and evolves appropriately, and that tools to support publishing and using data are developed and freely available. Members make this happen through their continued financial and practical support.

For more information about the benefits of joining IATI and how to become a member, see IATI Membership.