Terence Kihato

The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard is a set of rules and guidelines for open data publication by organizations, governments, and multilateral institutions. Being open to the public, publication using the standard increases an organization's transparency and helps improve accountability to taxpayers. IATI brings together more than 100 entities that publish data based on a specific detailed standard defined using XML.

I constructed the database process underpinning the data flow of FAO's field initiatives (65% of the overall budget) from the bespoke system to the ERP and onto IATI.

This is a key component of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) aid management compendium of tools. It is an Oracle/Java-based screening tool that checks if aid intervention given to a recipient country meets the "do no harm" conditions. It required a PL/SQL back end to validate the intervention against screening criteria (impact on water sources, forests, local communities, and so on). I developed the Oracle back end, which produced and maintained the SQLs for clearing, flagging, and messaging on the internet page and via email.

This project entailed implementing a water management system for water release and monitoring in the network of KenGen electricity dams. Working from Madrid, Spain, I developed a multi-language module so the system could be run in Spanish or English, depending on the user's choice. I also created two SQL-based reports, a monthly hydro station report showing daily water levels and spillage, and a report that shows the daily amount of electricity generated against dam levels. These reports were used in forecast generation in the ensuing months.

I developed an Excel-based tool that deploys an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) connection to extract data from SQL. It applies formulas to that data to prepare projection scenarios. Using a VBA-based macro, it generates more than 250 global, country, and regional workbooks, each having at least 10 worksheets.