From the Guided Implementation sessions, some confusion emerged on the IATI requirements for partnerships. Kitty van der Heijden, Director General for International Cooperation, recently clarified what we ask of the partnerships in terms of IATI publications in a letter to the leads of each partnership. We’re publishing it here, as well.

“Dear partners in the Strengthening Civil Society partnerships,

I am sure you are all working hard on the baselines and other work related to setting up our partnerships, which is very much appreciated. In this email I would like to focus your attention on an important aspect of keeping track on the results of the strategic partnerships: IATI reporting.

The Ministry is strongly committed to reporting in IATI and expects all its partners to do their utmost to register their activities in IATI. Jointly, we so create a better insight in who is working where, on which themes and which results are achieved. Based on the data we aim for an increased dialogue between MFA and partners on data and results as well as identifying opportunities for further collaboration.

I can imagine, however, that within the strategic partnerships (with a consortium lead working in an alliance of organisations), there is a need for some clarification on who is expected to report in IATI. In principle, each member of an alliance (that is mentioned in the accepted proposal) is expected to publish its own activities, according to the IATI principle of ‘publish what you do’. The lead of the partnership is responsible for the execution of this guideline by all partners.

There are two exceptions to this guideline:

  1. Partners within the alliance that represent a total budget of less than EUR 250.000, can decide not to publish in IATI. In that case, the alliance lead is responsible for publishing results and finances of that organisation, and to make sure the partner is properly mentioned.
  2. If there is concern about publication of sensitive data, several solutions exist, including anonymising partners, ‘levelling up’ location information, or not publishing an activity. Please discuss with your MFA contact point and the Helpdesk Open Data via helpdesk-opendata@minbuza.nl what is best in your situation.

I can imagine IATI is new to some of our partners and their staff members. If you need support, please consider taking part in the Guided Implementation programme that recently started. All information on this programme is available here. Please also refer to the general IATI Publication Guidelines of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the SCS Indicator Guidelines. The Ministry is making an effort to provide you with sufficient support and clear, made-to-measure guidance.

The Ministry envisages to use the data for an improved dialogue with partners about monitoring data and results as well as about identifying opportunities for further collaboration. Therefore, I count on you in our journey to more open data in the development sector.

For any further questions, please contact helpdesk-opendata@minbuza.nl or scs-mel@minbuza.nl.

With kind regards,

Kitty van der Heijden

Director General for International Cooperation

Ministry of Foreign Affairs”