TOR106: Development Gateway with Dustin Homer

If you've been a part of the "innovation" conversation in the humanitarian aid and international development sector for any amount of time, you have - more than once - admitted to yourself two things: Innovation is only second to strategy as the most overused and abused word in the development/aid lexicon, and When people are talking about innovation, they're usually talking about technology. While I am as guilty as the next person, I try my best to avoid stumbling into the trap of either of these pitfalls. However, when we mentally get past these two speed bumps, oftentimes, we find that what we're really talking about is how do we get more/better data in a cost effective way. Technology is helping to answer that question in a big way and, increasingly, I find myself having conversations with individuals and organizations that have access to some fairly large datasets. But then we quickly run into the next speed bump which is, unfortunately, much bigger than the first - how do we use this data to actually get better results from programming? Luckily, people like Dustin Homer of Development Gateway have the privelage of thinking about this issue everyday. As my guest here on the Terms of Reference Podcast for our 106th episode, Dustin and I discuss Development Gateway’s Results Data Initiative, which explores how development results data can be collected, shared and used more effectively. Dustin has learned, thought and written a lot about how tech and data actually matters for governments and development orgs – and how it doesn’t. He has also worked with DG's clients to manage development assistance portfolios, open up development data and visualize performance information. Dustin’s current day job is leading partnerships, communications and new business for DG. His background is in tech, M&E (especially impact evaluation) and transparency. He also co-founded and worked with a community development NGO in Haiti.