As we see a growing number of organisations engaging with responsible data practices and moving towards embedding them into their work, we are excited to announce our new project. From now until late August, we will collaborate with the German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to develop responsible data guidelines that will help GIZ field staff better advise partners on the potential harms and ethical challenges that arise when working with data.
GIZ is a German development agency that provides services in the field of international development cooperation. GIZ’s main commissioning party is the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and GIZ mainly implements technical cooperation projects for them.
Throughout the next few months, we will be collaborating with GIZ, who have a staff of 20,000 working in 120 countries, to develop responsible data guidelines. We expect that through this process, we will be able support GIZ, BMZ and development communities to better identify and address the potential harms and ethical challenges stemming from the use of data.
In addition to developing guidelines, we will support GIZ to raise awareness internally about the importance of responsible data. Part of our work will involve pointing staff to self-learning resources, which we will design to make clear why the topic affects their work.
With this effort, GIZ joins a growing group of organisations like USAID, DataKindUK and Oxfam, who are embedding responsible data principles into their organisational core.
Keeping this shift in mind, we look forward to sharing findings and challenges with the broader Responsible Data community. As part of this project, we will also be hosting a community call on developing responsible data guidelines for organisations – keep an eye on this space for more!