UN-Habitat is leading the way with regard to transparency in the United Nations system. In this session, Thomas Melin, Head of External Relations at UN-Habitat talks about ongoing efforts to make UN-Habitat and the wider UN system more open and transparent.

1. Making the United Nations
more open and transparent
Thomas Melin
Head of External Relations, UN-Habitat

2. The problem with aid data

3. The solution

4. Towards a common standard
International Aid Transparency Initiative
(IATI) set up in 2008 at the High Level
Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra,
Ghana.
192 publishers since 2011.
Denmark
United Kingdom
Finland
Netherlands
Spain
Sweden
Northern Ireland
European Union
World Bank
UN-Habitat
UNDP
UNOPS
UN Women
Action Aid
Oxfam
Handicap
International
Marie Stopes
Norwegian Refugee
Council

5. IATI registry

6. Open UN-Habitat
Transparency Initiative
Project to make UN-Habitat more
transparent and open.
Launched in 2011
Publishing financial and project
information as open data.
Funded by Sida.
International Aid Transparency
Initiative (IATI).

7. Open UN-Habitat activities
• Publishing IATI data
• Internal policies and procedures
• Database development
• Website development
• Staff training

8. Output: IATI data
• September 2012
• 3rd UN Agency and
75th publisher
overall
• 80% of project
portfolio published

9. Output: website
http://open.unhabitat.org

10. Challenges
• Initial fear of transparency
• Paper culture
• Quality assurance
• Project funding allocation
• Updating of the database
• Mapping data
• Dealing with Global Projects

11. Leading on transparency in
the United Nations
UN-Habitat, UNDP and UNOPS held
two UN-wide transparency
workshops during 2013.
Setting up a UN Working Group on
Transparency.
UN-Habitat held transparency
workshops with UNEP and UNESCO in
2013.
9 UN agencies have published IATI.

13. ‘Urban Numbers’ website
Aiming to collect the world’s urban statistics in
one place.
Publishing open data and presenting it using the
latest digital visualization techniques.
Statisticians and digital communications people
working together.
Hoping to establish a broad coalition of
multilateral institutions, member states,
academia, NGOs etc.
Some funding available, but fundraising
required.

14. “Wanted: A new data revolution”
•
A New Global Partnership
•
Report by the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 development agenda.
•
Will influence the new development goals after 2015.
•
Strong focus on development data and statistics.
•
Calls for improved data collection and dissemination.
•
Recommends the establishment of a Global Partnership on Development
Data.
February 2011
Knowledge Management Quick Wins

15. “
The revolution in information technology over
the last decade provides an opportunity to
strengthen data and statistics for accountability
and decision-making purposes. There have been
innovative initiatives to use mobile technology
and other advances to enable real-time
monitoring of development results. But this
movement remains largely disconnected from
the traditional statistics community at both
global and national levels.
The post-2015 process needs to bring them
together and start now to improve
development data.
- The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent
Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

16. Thank you