We are pleased to announce a new project on Open Agricultural investment data in partnership with Development Gateway, InterAction, International Food Policy Research Institute and the Foundation Center.

Food insecurity constitutes one of the world’s most pressing development needs. Although progress is being made, almost 800 million people worldwide still suffer from hunger.

Investments in agriculture are critical to improving food security and nutrition and to reducing poverty. However, in order to make the most effective investment decisions, organizations must have access to timely, comprehensive, and comparable information. Today, such information is either unavailable or not comparable due to differing data or coding standards. Simply put, without a clearer and more reliable picture of agricultural investments worldwide, the billions of dollars invested in agriculture each year might not be reaching their full potential.

Through the Initiative for Open Ag Funding, we will seek to improve international standards for reporting on funding for food security and agriculture. Our goal is to ensure that those providing funding in this sector have the data they need to make good decisions about their investments, and that those working to improve the effectiveness of those resources have the data they need to hold organizations accountable.

To do so, the project will identify current data needs and propose relevant changes and extensions to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard, which has become the international standard for sharing data on aid activities. We will then promote the adoption of any updates to the IATI standard by donors, foundations and NGOs, with the aim of increasing the amount of high quality, standardized data publicly available. Our ultimate goal is to see this data used to inform investments to improve the lives of millions affected by food insecurity and poverty.