Improving Microenterprise through Open Data | USAID Impact

"To find ways to counter the economic hardship that violence and conflict create in Latin America and the Caribbean, about 100 people from 50 organizations gathered last year for a hackathon organized by USAID. Determined to improve the governance and economic state of these countries, hackathon members from data, policy and technical backgrounds developed eight projects. Sitting among regional and policy experts were representatives from two data-focused USAID groups: Economic Analysis and Data Services, which facilitates USAID’s access to and analysis of development data and information, and the Development Experience Clearinghouse, an online repository of USAID-funded technical and project documents spanning over 50 years.  As data experts, questions of how USAID could leverage its wealth of data to benefit the growing number of projects in this region of the world were at the forefront of each group’s agenda.  In a brainstorming session, the groups conceived of a plan to integrate their data into an interactive portal, called the Microenterprise Results Reporting Portal, to visualize microenterprise information ... The Microenterprise Results Reporting Portal includes an online map that contextualizes microenterprise information at the project level by location, year and sector. The portal houses a full view of each project from its initial startup cost to the monitoring and evaluation efforts ..."