By Anoushka Wanchoo, Humanitarian Aid International, New Delhi, India

1. What is the Dashboard for Aid Transparency and Accountability (DATA)?

DATA, an acronym for “Dashboard for Aid Transparency and Accountability,” is a user-friendly platform tailored for NGOs operating in India and donors worldwide contributing funds within the country. Its core objective is to bolster the financial transparency of humanitarian funding in India and meticulously track the allocation of funds to grassroots organisations. By providing NGOs with a platform to proactively showcase their accountability to the communities they serve, DATA fosters transparency in the aid sector. It offers comprehensive information on humanitarian funding from inception to utilisation, promoting greater participation, instilling donor confidence in recipient organisations, highlighting active organisations, and facilitating enhanced coordination among donors and stakeholders.

2. Why it matters to India?

Currently, there exist two prominent international platforms, namely the Financial Tracking Service (FTS) overseen by UN OCHA and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). While these platforms primarily focus on capturing global-level funding, the Dashboard for Aid Transparency and Accountability (DATA) introduces additional features tailored to enhance relevance for country-level reporting and tracking, particularly in the context of humanitarian responses in India. DATA offers simplified reporting templates, ensuring that even smaller organisations can easily report their financial data. Moreover, it includes specific data fields to capture both domestic and international humanitarian funding flowing into India. Furthermore, DATA meticulously tracks the utilisation pattern of funds until they reach the affected communities, providing insights into the effectiveness of aid delivery. Additionally, it captures data on funding passed on to local or national organisations, thereby fostering transparency and accountability throughout the aid distribution process.

3. What is data important in humanitarian action?

• Sources of Funding: Funding data reveals where financial resources are coming from. This may include government grants, donations from individuals or corporations, revenue from fundraising activities, investments, or loans from financial institutions.
• Transparency of Funds: Understanding how funds are allocated provides insights into organisations’ priorities and strategies. DATA will help to determine who the first responders are and the funding they were able to access. Eventually, DATA will help the local actors to get more prominence and to have better access to funding.
• Impact Assessment: By analysing funding data alongside programme outcomes, organisations can assess the effectiveness of their spending. This helps determine whether the investments are achieving their desired outcomes and where adjustments may be needed to optimise impact.
• Resource Mobilisation: Analysing funding data helps organisations identify funding gaps and opportunities for resource mobilisation. By understanding where funding is lacking or where there is potential for growth, organisations can develop strategies to attract new funding sources and diversify their revenue streams.
• Decision-Making: Funding data informs strategic decision-making at various levels, from individual organisations to policymakers and donors. It helps stakeholders assess needs, set priorities, allocate resources efficiently, and evaluate the impact of funding decisions.

4. And how will it strengthen response?

• Resource Allocation: By analysing funding data, organisations can identify where financial resources are most needed and allocate them accordingly. This ensures that response efforts are adequately funded and targeted to address the most pressing needs.
• Timely Response: Having access to real-time funding data enables organisations to respond more quickly to emergencies. They can mobilise resources, deploy personnel, and deliver aid promptly to affected areas, minimising the impact of disasters and saving lives.
• Adaptation and Flexibility: Funding data provides insights into evolving needs and changing circumstances on the ground. Organisations can adapt their response strategies in real-time, reallocating funds to address emerging priorities and unforeseen challenges as they arise.
• Coordination and Collaboration: Transparent reporting of funding data fosters coordination and collaboration among humanitarian actors. Organisations can share information about funding sources, projects, and activities, enabling more effective partnerships and avoiding gaps or overlaps in assistance.
• Accountability and Transparency: DATA fosters accountability and transparency by enabling stakeholders to track fund utilization, assess response impact, and hold organizations accountable for results. By identifying first responders and their accessed funding, DATA enhances visibility and facilitates improved funding access for local actors.
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• Evidence-Based Decision-Making: Funding data provides evidence for decision-making at all levels of the response. Organisations can use data-driven insights to prioritise interventions, allocate resources strategically, and advocate for additional funding where needed.

5. What data can be shared with or via social media?

On the platform, users can access comprehensive data regarding funds mobilised and their allocation, categorised by financial year. It provides information on top donors, top recipient organisations, and their respective categories. Additionally, users can see which areas are heavily funded and which disasters are underfunded, enabling informed decision-making and resource allocation.

Furthermore, the platform displays critical data on operating and HR costs, essential for understanding the overhead costs associated with the response. Users can also access information on the funding gap and the duration it takes for organisations to collect funds and initiate a response. This data enables stakeholders to understand the challenges in resource mobilisation and response initiation, facilitating efforts to reduce the gap in funding and response time. By identifying bottlenecks and implementing strategies to expedite fundraising and response activities, the platform aims to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in addressing humanitarian needs.

Furthermore, to facilitate in-depth analysis and reporting, users have the option to download a detailed CSV file. This file enables the users to expand their analysis, conduct further research, and generate custom reports tailored to their specific needs and requirements.

By offering this functionality, the platform empowers users with robust data tools, fostering transparency, accountability, and informed decision-making in the management of financial resources.

6. What are the limitations?

Misinterpretation: Publicly available aid data may be misunderstood or misinterpreted by various stakeholders, leading to inaccurate conclusions or perceptions about the effectiveness or impact of aid programmes.

Data Incompleteness: Aid data may be incomplete or fragmented, lacking comprehensive coverage of all aid activities or omitting certain critical information, thereby limiting the usefulness and reliability of the data for analysis and decision-making.

Privacy and Confidentiality: Publishing aid data may raise privacy and confidentiality concerns, particularly regarding sensitive information about individuals or vulnerable populations, necessitating careful handling and protection of such data to prevent unauthorised access or misuse.

Capacity Constraints: Limited institutional capacity and technical expertise among aid organisations, governments, or local partners may hinder their ability to collect, manage, analyse, and report aid data effectively, impeding transparency and accountability efforts.

7. What are the challenges and risks in making aid data public? Risk to the affected population? Risk to NGOs? Risks to authorities?

• Risk to the Affected Population: Publicly available aid data can be misinterpreted by the affected population, leading to unrealistic expectations or misunderstandings about the assistance’s nature or scope. Additionally, excessive reliance on this data may hinder self-reliance and community resilience, fostering a dependency mindset rather than promoting sustainable development efforts.
• Risk to NGOs: NGOs may encounter challenges with the misuse or misrepresentation of aid data, risking damage to their reputation, trust with donors, and unintended consequences for beneficiaries. Concerns about transparency pressure may also deter some NGOs from disclosing financial or operational details, fearing scrutiny or competitive disadvantages.
• Risks to Authorities: Government authorities distributing aid may face heightened pressure to demonstrate accountability and transparency in public fund usage, leading to increased scrutiny. Additionally, they may encounter data management challenges, such as accuracy and timeliness issues, impacting decision-making and resource allocation processes.

8. What are your plans to make government data public?

The data reporting on our platform is absolutely voluntary. We are not planning to publish data on behalf of the Government. Instead, we are approaching different SDMAs, NDMA and NIDM, to inform them about the existence of this portal. We are optimistic, that eventually, they will accept its usefulness and start reporting data. We hold a positive outlook that as these entities recognize the utility and benefits of our platform, they will willingly choose to participate and report relevant data. Through ongoing dialogue and collaboration, we seek to cultivate a culture of transparency, accountability, and effective data-sharing practices in disaster management. By empowering all stakeholders with access to timely and accurate information, we aim to collectively strengthen our disaster preparedness and response capabilities.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.