World Humanitarian Summit – IATI briefing

  • May 19, 2016

Ahead of the first World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) next week (23-24 May), IATI has published a briefing explaining the initiative’s role in improving operational effectiveness in humanitarian action.

In February, the UN Secretary-General’s Agenda for Humanity called for all humanitarian actors to publish their humanitarian finance to IATI. Next week, the WHS provides the opportunity for actors to think about how best to implement this commitment.

Our briefing provides decision makers and humanitarian organisations with key information on the case for reporting humanitarian assistance to IATI and how to go about publishing IATI data.

Download IATI’s WHS full briefing here.

Benefits of reporting humanitarian financing to IATI

During humanitarian crises, key actors on the ground complain that there is little or no data available on financial pledges or actual expenditure from donors or intermediaries until some time after the event, when it has ceased to be useful. Better data on financing is essential for the improved operational efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian action; a lack of reliable, timely data, particularly in fast-onset emergencies, impairs planning, coordination and delivery.

If all humanitarian actors published timely data to the IATI Standard, this would play a significant role in bridging this data gap, providing freely available data for anyone to track commitments, expenditure and disbursements throughout the delivery chain.

IATI meeting the needs of humanitarian actors

While the IATI Standard was originally developed with traditional development flows in mind, here are some of the ways that is has been modified for the reporting of humanitarian data:

  • Organisations can mark their activities as ‘humanitarian’ and tag them to specific crises and sectors using version 2.02 of the IATI Standard
  • Organisations can provide daily updates (when necessary) of financial and logistical information to be exchanged automatically between donors, implementing agencies and coordination structures – something particularly pertinent to data needs in fast-onset crises
  • Results data and needs assessments can also be published to IATI, activities can be tagged to particular SDGs, and more general activity-level information can also be provided

I want to publish IATI data – where do I start?

There are resources and guidance to help publishers through each step of the process and the IATI Technical Team are on hand to work closely with publishers. IATI’s full WHS briefing provides further details on becoming an IATI publisher.

Meet with IATI at the World Humanitarian Summit

To arrange a meeting at the World Humanitarian Summit to discuss IATI, please contact Joni Hillman (IATI Secretariat) via email at [email protected].

You can also hear more about IATI reporting at a side-event that we are co-hosting at the WHS. The event will take place on Monday 23 May, between 11:00 and 12:30 at Rumeli Hall 7, Lütfi Kırdar Convention and Exhibition Center.