This document discusses Open Nepal, an initiative to promote open data and its use for development in Nepal. It is a collaborative platform involving intermediaries and data users to make data more accessible and help with analysis. The National Federation of NGOs in Nepal (NFN) and Freedom Forum are two organizations supporting Open Nepal. NFN aims to establish a database of NGOs on the portal to promote transparency. Freedom Forum works on issues like democracy and human rights and wants to contribute to Open Nepal to increase aid transparency in Nepal. Both organizations will build capacity of journalists, NGOs and other intermediaries on accessing, analyzing and using aid and budget data.

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Open Nepal

2. http://opennepal.net2

3. http://opennepal.net
To achieve this we need...
Open data
Intermediaries
Information users
Ecosystem Tools Capacity
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4. http://opennepal.net
Open Nepal is...
A collaborative platform to promote the
availability of better data and provide
tools, skills and support to help those in the
development ecosystem to access, analyse
and use data for more inclusive and effective
development
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5. http://opennepal.net 5

6. http://opennepal.net 6

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Overview of NFN
• National NGO Platform / National
Federation of NGOs in Nepal - established
in 1991
• A leading Civil Society Organization in
Nepal with 5584 member NGOs
• 75 District Chapters, 5 Regional
Committees and a Central Working
Committee
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Defend
rights &
autonomy
of NGOs
Capacity
development
of member
organizations
Advocacy
and lobby
on public
issues and
concerns
Defend
human
rights, democ
racy and
individual
freedom
Expand the
spaces of
NGOs in
policy
making

8. http://opennepal.net
Core Functions
• Defend rights and autonomy of NGOs
• Capacity development of member
organizations
• Advocacy and lobby on public issues and
concerns
• Defend human rights, democracy and
individual freedom
• Expand the spaces of NGOs in policy making
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9. http://opennepal.net
Open data for development effectiveness
• To contribute to transparency, accountability, effective
service delivery and better results of development
efforts
• To enhance access to information and
data, information and data based planning, evidence
based advocacy and development efforts
• To assess the contribution of NGOs in national
development
• For coordination of development efforts, avoiding
duplication and overlaps, equitable distribution of
resources, looking into off-budget aid and its results
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10. http://opennepal.net
What we hope to achieve?
• Establish database and portal of NGO Federation
members and other NGOs, feeding in data to Open
Nepal Portal—aid, areas, sectors, results
• Awareness building: open data, access, use, results—
increasing demand and use
• Establishing links and collaboration with
stakeholders: AMP, SWC, World Bank, and other online
initiatives; localizing Open Nepal portal
• Promote transparency, accountability, effectiveness
and credibility of NGOs through open data
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11. http://opennepal.net
What we hope to achieve?
• Capacity of the NGOs enhanced in accessing the
information on aid, analyzing data and
information and using it for advocacy
• Facilitate dialogues among stakeholders on aid
transparency, aid effectiveness, development
effectiveness, and good governance
• Develop NFN as an information intermediary
helping to make information on resources
accessible to NGOs
• Build and deliver skills and tools for data and
budget analysis, evidence based advocacy
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12. Overview of Freedom Forum
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Causes:
social accountability
democracy
human rights
Focus:
press
freedom
freedom of
expression
RTI
Works through:
research
capacity building
evidence-based
advocacy
media mobilization
campaign
programme
implementation
Freedom Forum is an independent civil society
organization incepted in 2005...
Current work: public finance management, budget openness, aid
governance, political and parliamentary accountability and electoral
reform

13. http://opennepal.net
Freedom Forum and Open Nepal
• Aid transparency is central to the country like
Nepal which is heavily dependent on foreign aid
and grants
• Freedom Forum wants to contribute to promote
aid transparency by improving the availability and
accessibility of information about aid resources in
Nepal
• Similarly, our hand-on experience on budget
survey and advocacy has provided us impetus to
expand the work on open data and aid
transparency that we call Open Nepal Initiative
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14. http://opennepal.net
Freedom Forum - lessons
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15. http://opennepal.net
Freedom Forum work on Open
Nepal
• Work to strengthen capacity of economic-beat
journalists and parliamentarian secretariat
employees to make them able to use, analyse
and impart aid information as intermediaries
• Reaching out to citizen for increasing their
awareness level on ATA issues through budget/aid
literacy programme, booklets and radio
programmes will be our another key area for
intervention of the initiative
• Research on impact of open data in Nepal as part
of international ODDC project
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16. http://opennepal.net
Objectives for Freedom Forum
• Data-driven journalism help to support the
media and parliamentary support staff as a
catalyst to promote open, transparent and
accountable governance in country
• Understand, document and share the impacts
of open data and lessons learned from Open
Nepal work
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