December 2011

Introducing AidData 2.0

AidData launched its new and improved website last month, featuring more content and new data and marking an expansion in the program’s mission and scope. What began as a project to build a new kind of development assistance database has evolved into a broader initiative that aims to increase the accessibility and relevance of development finance information for a wide range of stakeholders. The new website highlights innovative projects to find new ways of gathering, managing, and visualizing development finance information, such as geocoding and crowdsourcing. Maps that show the geographical distribution of specific donor-funded activities offer a powerful way to help decision makers and citizens ask the right questions about aid allocation and effectiveness.

Those looking for data will find many new resources on the AidData site. AidData Raw is a new repository of stand-alone datasets that have not yet been vetted for inclusion in the main AidData database. It includes geo-location, project evaluation, and non-DAC donor datasets, as well as links to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) registry of aid activities. AidData 2.0 also includes a new collection of replication datasets associated with influential aid allocation and effectiveness studies, and many other new datasets for researchers. Soon, dashboards for key sectors will be added to the site, highlighting key trends and actors, and connecting activity-level data with other relevant resources.

In addition, the main AidData database has been updated to include the latest release of the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System data, and additional data sources, such as:

African Development Bank (2009-2010)
African Development Fund (2008-2010)
Arab Fund for Economic & Social Development (2007-2010)
India (2005-2010, Ministry of Finance & Ministry of External Affairs)
Islamic Development Bank (1975-2008)
Kuwait (2007-2009, Kuwait Fund for Economic Development)
Latvia (2008-2010)
Nigerian Trust Fund (2007-2010)
Poland (2007-2010)
Saudi Arabia (2005-2009, Saudi Fund for Development)
United Arab Emirates (2008-2010, Abu Dhabi Fund for Development)

Please send any feedback and suggestions for improving the website to info@aiddata.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

World Development Special Issue Highlights AidData

In November, a special issue of the journal World Development focused entirely on research using AidData. It includes 11 papers that use the main AidData database, along with other sources, to offer new insights into aid allocation and the consequences of aid, as well as an examination of “new donors” in the development space, and rankings of aid agency practices. Contributing authors include William Easterly, Homi Kharas, and other scholars interested in refining the research community’s understanding of the evolution of aid, aid transparency, and what makes aid effective.

The introductory essay, written by AidData researchers Mike Tierney, Dan Nielson, Darren Hawkins, Timmons Roberts, Michael Findley, Ryan Powers, Bradley Parks, Sven Wilson, and Robert Hicks, reviews key debates within the aid effectiveness literature and draws on AidData to survey major trends in the volume and composition of aid. One recurring theme is that AidData and these initial academic projects refine rather than revolutionize our knowledge of aid flows and their effects. A common feature of the papers in the special issue is their careful attention to nuance and detail—they recognize that aid is neither a simple solution nor a sufficient cause of most problems in developing countries. Capturing and analyzing this complexity requires detailed data, careful thought, and sophisticated methods that allow scholars to make conditional causal and descriptive inferences.

CCAPS Unveils New Mapping Dashboard in Durban, Featuring Geocoded Malawi Aid Data

Last week at the COP17 climate change conference in Durban, South Africa, AidData’s partners at the Strauss Center’s Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program unveiled their new mapping dashboard which combines information on climate vulnerability, armed conflict, and aid to Malawi. In the coming months, the dashboard will be expanded in both functionality and data coverage to include aid data across Africa (with data from the World Bank and African Development Bank, now available through AidData Raw), data on governance indicators, and the SCAD data set on social conflict in Africa. These datasets represent the four pillars addressed by CCAPS’s work: climate vulnerability, conflict, governance, and foreign aid.

A collaborative research program among four institutions and led by the University of Texas, the CCAPS program aims to provide practical guidance for U.S. policymakers, enrich the current body of scholarly literature, and nurture a future generation of scholars and practitioners. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative—a university-based, social science research program focused on areas of strategic importance to national security policy. Through quantitative analysis, GIS mapping, case studies and field interviews, the program works to identify whether climate change could trigger disasters that undermine state stability, define strategies for building African state capacity, and assess global development aid responses. The CCAPS team seeks to engage Africa policy communities in the United States, Africa, and elsewhere as a critical part of its research.

Nov. 4 Event: Putting Aid Data to Work

The new AidData website was first previewed at an event on Nov. 4, organized by AidData, the World Bank Institute, and the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Putting Aid Data to Work: Using Better Information to Get Better Results was a day-long event that brought policymakers, technologists, development practitioners, and researchers together to discuss the open data movement and how it is impacting development work. In his keynote address, Richard Manning—former chair of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee—set the context for the day’s discussions. He noted that the transparency agenda was largely absent from the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness framework, but that then-President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn had emphasized it at the 2003 Rome High Level Forum, and it has since reemerged as a major theme. Mr. Manning argued that "infomediaries," such as AidData, will play a key role in making the deluge of public data more accessible and understandable.

The discussion continued with a distinguished opening panel, moderated by Catherine Weaver of the Strauss Center’s CCAPS program and Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. First, Aleem Walji (Innovation Practive Manager, World Bank Institute) talked about the need for “hyper-local” data—and that putting data in the public domain allows outsiders to find uses for it that the original institution may never have considered. Demand for the data may not be obvious ex ante, but following the example of Andrew Carnegie, he argued that “sometimes you have to build the libraries before you build literacy.”

Sheila Herrling (Vice President, Department of Policy and Evaluation, Millennium Challenge Corporation) and Lindsay Coates (Executive Vice President, Interaction) discussed the broad range of stakeholders involved in making aid information more available, including donor agencies, legislatures, and civil society organizations. David Wheeler (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development) gave practical examples of lessons learned from projects that sought to increase transparency, emphasizing that it is difficult to know beforehand who the audience for the information will be, but that demand surfaces during the process. Jean-Louis Sarbib (CEO, Development Gateway) concluded the panel discussion by summarizing key challenges facing those who aim to increase aid transparency: information needs to be complete, credible, and relevant, and sustainability is key—institutions must modify their behavior, not simply pursue one-off transparency initiatives.

Other sessions throughout the day focused on ways of tracking aid information, monitoring climate change-related finance, and closing the feedback loop between donors and other aid stakeholders. A number of fascinating new initiatives to make aid information more useful as a tool for research, policymaking, and grassroots monitoring were demonstrated, and all presentations are available online, along with video recordings of each session.

Highlights

Making Open Data Work for the Poor

Shanta Devarajan, World Bank Chief Economist for the Africa Region, gave a fascinating and provocative talk at the Nov. 4 event on critiques of the open data movement, which he later summarized and elaborated on in a blog post. In a response, AidData’s Dan Nielson and Dustin Homer agreed with his premise that domestic political barriers likely "short-circuit" the relationship between better information and better development outcomes. They took the opportunity to talk about two studies under construction at AidData that will address this issue head-on: randomized control trials that will introduce interventions to (1) solicit citizen feedback on development outcomes and (2) take the feedback directly to the desks of relevant policy-makers. Read more on the First Tranche.

Findings from Crowdsourcing Pilot in Uganda

At the Nov. 4 event, Dan Nielson presented AidData’s work with UNICEF and Ushahidi in Uganda to test several ways of crowdsourcing aid information. Organizations like Ushahidi have successfully demonstrated the power of crowdsourcing in disaster situations, when time is of the essence, and found that citizens are highly motivated to provide critical information. However, it is less clear how citizens are motivated in a non-crisis environment. Through a randomized controlled trial that employed several different incentives to encourage participation, the team learned that the “crowd” was already relatively motivated, but that material incentives (the chance to be entered in a lottery) did increase participation significantly. Dr. Nielson is an Associate Professor at Brigham Young University, and one of the co-founders of AidData—download his presentation here.

Insights from the World Bank’s IEG Data

The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group, responsible for monitoring the Bank’s activities, recently released a dataset containing evaluations of almost 10,000 World Bank projects since the early 1960s. This dataset presents a unique opportunity for researchers to examine the determinants of successful project implementation. Two recent blog posts on the First Tranche explore what the dataset shows about broad trends in project success rates around the world, and what it tells us about the correlation between project performance and conflict at the local level in Afghanistan.

What's Hot

The International Aid Transparency Initiative scored several victories in Busan, with the United States, Canada, the Inter-American Development Bank, CDC, and the UN Capital Development Fund signing on (UNHABITAT has since joined, bringing the total to 28 signatories, accounting for over 80% of development finance). Thanks to a few recent announcements, a total of 19 entities (13 of which are signatories) have now published information to the IATI registry.

Post-Busan analysis: Jonathan Glennie’s views on the Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog; Nancy Birdsall discusses China officially joining the “donor club”; and on the Development Policy Centre’s blog, representatives from several Australian NGOs share their perspective on what Busan means for NGOs. Read the Busan outcome document here.

Publish What You Fund launched its 2011 pilot Aid Transparency Index in November, reporting that while some donors have made good progress, no donor qualified for the index’s highest ranking, meaning that all have significant room for improvement. The index ranked 58 donor agencies across 37 indicators of transparency. Development Gateway was involved in the development of the index, including the design and peer review process, and providing advice on statistical analysis of the results.

Transparency International recently launched a new online portal to help users understand different methods of measuring and analysing corruption.

AidData 2.0 by the Numbers

-26 datasets in AidData Raw
-58 replication datasets for researchers on the website
-102 publications that use AidData
-87 donors in the main AidData database, representing 376 financing agencies
-$5.4 trillion covered in main AidData database (USD 2009)