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Description
Data-based advocacy globally is an efficient approach that has growingly been taken up by NGOs and that leads to changes in public policies and transparency in the work of institutions. However, this approach has not been well-established in Bulgaria yet. Data is becoming a more and more valuable component in the work of NGOs in order to achieve efficiency and accuracy, form an expert opinion and a reasoned position and improve the image of NGOs and their results before the media, the public and the institutions. Despite positive trends among Bulgarian institutions for publishing data, data remains insufficiently well structured, with limited availability or in a format requiring specific processing skills. The solution we propose aims at boosting NGO capacity. Our solution provides for the setting up of a functional platform and a network of experts and organizations. The latter will help improve the skills of civil society activists to work with data, a tool will be provided for access to categorized institutional information in one place and training resources for data analysing and visualizing will be offered. The latter activities will raise the public visibility of NGOs and their initiatives and public trust in their work. The online platform will help civil society organizations acquire skills to use and manage data flows so that they can extract important and correct information and use it to exercise control over public governance and carry out advocacy campaigns. The planned training of NGO activists will meet their needs for building capacity in the field of advocacy, based on data analysis and use. Interaction between IT specialists, activists and organizations in the long term will help build partnership beneficial for all parties because their expertise will be complemented and can be used for successful initiatives on topics important for public life.
Summary of project results
The main objective of the project was to create opportunities to increase the knowledge and skills of CSOs to work with databases and to present their initiatives in an effective way.
IPED and the professionals involved in the project worked on the development of a mentorship program and a training event. Through these we sought to provide an opportunity to build partnerships between professionals from different fields (IT, marketing, advertising, sociology, statistics) and NGO activists.
The "Data Zone" online platform was created by IPED as part of the project. It can be viewed as a “hub” for institutional data presented in a relevant and accessible way. It also has training resources for NGOs, thus enabling the activists to deepen their research and increase the effective presentation of their initiatives.
Through the project’s work, the development of the training materials, the study of good practices, the participation in the mentorship program and the contacts and cooperation between NGOs and specialists in other fields of activity, IPED also increased its capacity, including for more effective communication with the public and reaching a wide range of stakeholders.
The "Data Zone" platform developed as part of the project has a lasting potential to attract interested organizations. On it, they can improve their data skills and promote their causes and initiatives by including them in the "Good Practices" section.
The development and maintenance of the platform is a part of IPED’s long-term and systematic data initiatives.