Transparency Strikes Oil!

Transparency saw a win recently when the oil company Statoil disclosed project-level payments it makes to governments it works in. Organizations like Oxfam America and National Resource Governance Institute applauded the oil company for leading the way and proving that it can be done.

In other transparency news, the IATI Ghana Data Use Workshop 2015 took place a few weeks ago, and they released a survey titled “IATI Since 2008” to assess the impact IATI has had. IATI members, publishers, commentators and other stakeholders were able to participate in the survey.

While we’re on the topic, you might want to start planning for the International Open Data Conference coming up in May. So get your talking points and your business cards in order as a wide range of open data specialists will converge on Ottawa for two days to discuss and share where we’ve been, where we are, but mostly where we’re going in respect to the Data Revolution.

Switching topics, Tanzania’s parliament approved a law that requires firms to satisfy authorities that no local could do the job before employing foreigner. While this will obviously have many implications, a timely article from The Guardian discusses the importance of migration for strengthening economies. If this gets you wondering about global migration trends, well there is a data visualization for you. Take a look at The Global Flow of People over the years.

This piece has been modified and was originally posted on the First Tranche. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons.