Earthquake Response Transparency Portal 2.0 launched
We are very pleased to set a new release of the Earthquake Response Transparency Portal live.
While the first release of the portal focused on tracking how much funds are coming into Nepal in response to the April 25 and May 12 earthquakes, the second release expands the scope to also track the use of these funds. Furthermore, the new release differentiates the captured transactions by type, allowing e.g. to infer the progress of the reconstruction effort by comparing non-binding ‘pledges’ to contractual agreed ‘commitments’, and ‘expenditures’ both in total and for individual organizations. It is now also possible to explore the data in greater depth by using the references within the data. Portal users can for example browse along a funding chain from the primary provider, through potential intermediaries to the organization that spends the funds on the ground.
The portal currently holds data from several national and international primary and secondary sources such as press releases, media reports, the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund, United Nations OCHA Financial Tracking Service, the collection of corporate donations by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) repository. By making this data available on a single portal we are striving to capture the best possible picture of the reconstruction effort.
As of March 4th, 2016 we have captured records from 942 organizations, 2072 transactions, and 58 projects. We are painfully aware that the data is incomplete, making it especially difficult to interpret (sub-) totals derived from it. Populating the portal with more data by also reaching out to involved organizations directly, will be the next step to increase the usefulness of the portal. Similarly to the reconstruction effort itself, the data gathering work will be ongoing for months and years to come.
Besides populating the portal with more data, our plans for the upcoming months are to publish analysis on the basis of the portal data, add more analysis options to the portal itself, and to reach out to organizations and individuals who plan to use our data, e.g. for “follow the money”-activities.
Beyond providing data on the reconstruction effort we are also aiming at establishing the portal and especially this blog to be a forum for discussions on the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of the reconstruction effort.
We would be very glad to hear your feedback on the new portal release and our activities. Please either use the comment function of the blog or contact us at earthquake@opennepal.net.
P.S. To first time visitors of the Earthquake Transparency Response Portal we recommend you consult the How To section, which explains the portal’s functionality and also provides hints on how to interpret the data.
