Who runs IATI?

Meet the teams that make up IATI’s Governing Board and Secretariat. Both are accountable to IATI members.

Governing board

The Governing Board takes a leadership role in overseeing the implementation of IATI’s work. The board puts recommendations on key budget and strategic issues to the Members’ Assembly for final approval.

The Board is made up of seven members representing providers of development cooperation, partner countries and civil society, non-governmental and private sector organisations. The Board also includes one technical representative. The members of the Board appoint IATI’s Chair and Vice Chairs, who chair both the Governing Board and the Members’ Assembly.

Thea Schepers

  • IATI Chair
  • Senior Advisor IATI, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Thea Schepers is part of the Open Data Team in the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She provides internal and external advice on implementing the IATI Standard and using IATI data. As part of her role, Thea delivers training on how to publish IATI data to the Ministry’s implementing partners. Before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she implemented IATI publishing in a development organisation as part of her role as database manager.
  • IATI constituency: Provider of development cooperation

Zainab Al-Azzawi

  • Chief Organizational Performance, Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring
  • United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
  • IATI constituency: Provider of development cooperation

Mohamed Gele

  • AIMS Manager and Technical Advisor
  • Ministry of Planning, Investment & Economic Development (MoPIED), Government of Somalia
Mohamed Gele is currently a technical advisor at the government of Somalia’s Aid Coordination Office, facilitating the operationalisation of the country's aid architecture. He previously led the design and development of the Somalia Aid Information Management System (AIMS), a platform that tracks and reports on aid flows and results in Somalia. Mohamed Gele is a Data Scientist with over nine years of experience of working on development data.
  • IATI constituency: Partner Country

Motai Ramokoinihi

  • Government of Lesotho, Ministry of Finance and Development Planning
  • IATI constituency: Partner Country

Charlie Martial Ngounou

  • IATI Vice-Chair
  • Executive President, AfroLeadership
Charlie is a champion for data rights, digital rights and human rights online. He is the founder and president of AfroLeadership, a pan-african civil society organisation promoting open data, open governance, data economy and data justice to improve transparency, accountability and citizen participation in African countries. Charlie is also a founding member and is on the Board of Directors for MyData Global and aNewGovernance. He is an advisory board member and Africa Representative of PLACE, a global organisation aiming to deliver ultra-high resolution open maps of the urban world.
  • IATI constituency: Civil society organisation and other

Anand Ramachandran Nair

  • Fields Data
  • IATI constituency: Civil society organisation and other

Siem Vaessen

  • Zimmerman BV
Siem Vaessen has been working with IATI since 2010 and has actively promoted and developed IATI data tools for a variety of international stakeholders. He has been actively engaged in the the IATI data Standard throughout his work at Zimmerman as well as well as contributing to different IATI working groups since 2010.
  • IATI constituency: Technical Seat

Secretariat

IATI’s Secretariat is responsible for delivering the activities of the initiative, as set by the Governing Board. UNDP hosts the Secretariat and is responsible for IATI’s policy and technology services. UNOPS is the Secretariat’s service provider of the initiative’s legal and operational functions, and Open Data Services is the Secretariat’s technology delivery partner (contracted via UNDP).