Data, Accountability and Commercialisation. Working with NGO data to enhance downwards accountability in contexts of livelihood change.

这个项目有两个维度。首先，它使用在莫桑比克开展工作的发展非政府组织MICAIA掌握的数据，探索自然资源商业化的预期和意想不到的后果。MICAIA一直在集中参与提高自然资源(蜂蜜、猴面包树)的农场出厂价格，并改善这些资源的管理。我们寻求更好地使用和扩展MICAIA的数据，以了解这项工作如何对莫桑比克农村最有益。第二，它解决了发展非政府组织面临的一个关键问题。这些非政府组织应该向下对他们存在所服务的人负责。而且他们必须对资助者负起向上的责任。这种紧张关系是全球发展非政府组织部门的核心特征之一。这种紧张关系的一个核心组成部分是数据。了解他人生活的能力是问责制的基础，无论是在项目绩效、贫困变化、繁荣和福祉、社区机构、基础设施等方面。数据提供了对资金、生活和组织的权力。因此，该项目探索的挑战是，发展非政府组织如何以促进向下问责的方式收集、存储和呈现数据，同时也满足资助者的要求。它建立在之前与MICAIA共同资助的二级数据倡议的基础上。该项目致力于数据管理计划和组织，以整理之前从开发项目和企业收集的数据。我们将在这个项目中致力于新的数据收集形式和方式，以解决问责制的两难境地。具体地说，这个项目探讨了四个挑战。首先，它将研究数据管理和数据收集如何既能对当前的资助者需求做出反应(关于资金的使用方式和目的)，同时又能保持对繁荣的长期监测和沟通，这些方面对社区最重要。协调和整合数据收集的这些方面并不是一帆风顺的。然而，维护后者--跟踪社区最感兴趣的变化方面--是向下问责的核心。第二个挑战是，这些数据收集系统必须足够强大和灵活，以应对不可预见的变化。这可能很常见，特别是在项目成功的情况下。它们可以呈现社区生活和繁荣的新方面，社区和组织将希望跟踪这些方面。第三，我们将考虑如何将这些数据与目前公开的数据有效地整合在一起，以便能够最有效和最普遍地使用这些数据。我们将探讨MICAIA在自然资源管理和商业化方面的工作。MICAIA成立了一家猴面包树产品公司，为农村妇女提供可观的收入，因为农村妇女几乎没有收入机会。它有一家历史更悠久的蜂蜜公司，业务范围更广。此外，它还在自然资源管理和体制支助的不同方面开展了几个项目。这些活动加在一起，推动了可喜的重大变化。但是，跟踪这一变化并使用这些数据向适当的实体提供信息，以及捕捉不可预见的发展--例如新收入导致的家庭内部性别关系的变化--并不直接。这个项目将承担这项任务。这是第四个挑战。这项工作的成果将是关于MICAIA工作的莫桑比克农村动态的更好数据。这些将向社区、地方政府和MICAIA的计划和项目提供反馈。在第二个方面，它将产生利用数据加强向下问责的协议和系统，这将对更广泛的发展非政府组织有用。最后，我们还将对自然资源商业化的后果提供见解。

This project has two dimensions. First it uses data held by Micaia, a development NGO that works in Mozambique, to explore the expected and unexpected consequences of commercialisation of natural resources. Micaia has been centrally involved in raising farm gate prices of natural resources (honey, baobab) and improving the management of those resources. We seek to use and expand Micaia's data better to understand how this work can be most beneficial to rural Mozambicans.Second, it tackles a key problem facing development NGOs. These NGOs should be downwardly accountable to the people whom they exist to serve. And they have to be upwardly accountable to their funders. This tension is one of the central attributes of the development NGO sector globally. A central component of this tension is data. The ability to know things about other people's lives is fundamental to accountability, whether with respect to project performance, changes in poverty, prosperity and wellbeing, community institutions, infrastructure and so on. Data provide power over funds, lives and organisations.The challenge this project explores therefore is how development NGOs can collect, store and present data in ways that facilitate downwards accountability, while also meeting funders' requirements. It builds on a previously funded secondary data initiative with Micaia. That project worked on data management plans and organisation to marshal previously collected data from development projects and businesses. We will work in this project on new forms and modalities of data collection that tackle the dilemmas of accountability. Specifically this project explores four challenges. First, it will examine how data management and data collection can respond both to immediate funder needs (on how money has been spent and to what end) while also maintaining longer term monitoring and communicating key aspects of prosperity that matter most to communities. Co-ordinating and integrating these aspects of data collection is not straight forward. Yet maintaining the latter - tracking aspects of change that communities are most interested in - is central to downwards accountability. The second challenge is that these data collection systems must be robust and agile enough to respond to unforeseen changes. These can be common, particularly where projects are successful. They can present new aspects of community life and prosperity that communities and organisations will wish to track. Third, we will consider how these data might be effectively integrated with currently publicly available data in order that they can be most effectively and generally used.We will be exploring these issues with respect to Micaia's work in natural resource management and commercialisation. Micaia has set up a baobab products company which provides substantial revenues to rural women where few revenue earning opportunities are available. It has a longer established honey company which works over a larger area. In addition it has worked on several projects on different aspects of natural resource management and institutional support. In combination these activities have driven substantial welcome change. But tracking that change and using those data to inform the appropriate entities, as well as capturing unforeseen developments - such changing gender relations within households that new revenues cause - is not straight forward. This project will take on this task. That is the fourth challenge.The outputs of this work will be better data on the dynamics of rural villages in Mozambique where Micaia works. These will inform feedback to communities, local government and Micaia's plans and projects. In the second it will generate protocols and systems of using data to enhance downward accountability that will be useful to development NGOs more widely. Finally we will also provide insights into the consequences of commercialisation of natural resources.