A data-driven approach delivering tangible outcomes to communities
Governments and natural resources companies are recognizing the importance of public data disclosure on social, economic and environmental impacts and contributions towards quality-of-life improvements. Such efforts increase accountability and build trust.
To meet the public’s needs, data must be easily accessible and presented in user-friendly formats. From Disclosure to Development (D2D), a BHP Foundation partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) a division of the World Bank Group, helps citizens become better informed about decisions that affect them by providing frameworks to enable the sharing of data, such as tax flows, royalty payments, and water use statistics.
Over the past four years, IFC has built disclosure platforms across industry, governments, and civil society that have facilitated citizen access to information and open data on the natural resources and infrastructure sectors. Its data-driven approaches are enabling new models of collaboration and decision-making, delivering tangible outcomes to communities.
In Peru, new participatory budgeting laws were informed by citizen monitoring of municipalities’ use of royalties generated from natural resources projects. In Mongolia, IFC is working with the Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry, mining companies, and civil society organizations to increase citizen understanding of open data and build innovative, open data-driven applications for mining communities. And in Ghana, IFC partners with a local tech school on a program in support of young entrepreneurs interested in establishing start-ups that offer data solutions to natural resource challenges.