UN-Habitat has joined the Open Aid Partnership, a World Bank-led initiative that brings together development partners, governments, civil society organizations, foundations, and the private sector to improve aid transparency and effectiveness. The Partnership’s goal is to collect and open up local development data to engage citizens and other stakeholders in evidence-based conversations on development.
This is the latest in a number of initiatives UN-Habitat has taken to make the organisation more open and transparent. At the end of 2012, UN-Habitat began publishing project and financial data complying with the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). IATI is an internationally recognized standard for publishing open information on aid spending and currently has nearly 200 publishers, including the Government of Sweden, the World Bank and the Gavi Alliance. UN-Habitat was the third UN entity to publish IATI data after the UN Office for Project Services, UNOPS and the UN Development Programme, UNDP.
As part of its transparency work, UN-Habitat also launched a new section of its website that enables the public to easily browse the organisations’ current projects. The Open UN-Habitat web page provides information about project budgets and spending using the IATI format. New projects are continuously added as they enter their implementation phase.
In an effort to promote transparency within the wider United Nations system, UN-Habitat together with UNDP and UNOPS initiated the UN Working Group on Transparency. The Group, which met twice in 2013, is an information-sharing platform for UN organisations interested in carrying out transparency work. The next meeting is likely to be held in New York during the first quarter of 2014.
For more information about UN-Habitat’s transparency work, visit the Open UN-Habitat web page or contact transparency@unhabitat.org. |
