Open Policy requirements for projects funded by the Department for Climate, Nature, and the Private Sector

Norad’s Department for Climate, Nature and the Private Sector has decided to discontinue its Open Policy as a general requirement for projects funded by the Department for Climate, Nature and the Private Sector.

This does not mean that openness and the principles and approaches outlined in the policy have become less important to Norad. Open data, open standards, open knowledge and open source software remain essential principles for transparency, collaboration, reuse and long-term development impact.

However, we also need to be honest about the current operating environment, in which developments – including many of our partners – are often moving in the opposite direction.

A more complex market situation, increased pressure to deliver quickly, and limited technical capacity have led many organisations to choose simple and readily available solutions.

In practice, this often means stronger dependence on proprietary platforms, cloud services and services provided by large technology companies, in practice leading to vendor lock-in.

This development is not always visible in the language used around projects. Many initiatives are still presented as open source, open data or digital public goods. Some of them are. Others, however, are built on proprietary dependencies, restricted access, closed governance models or platform arrangements that limit real reuse, independence and local control.

We cannot ask partners to comply with a strict open policy while the broader technology landscape, including parts of the open and digital public goods ecosystem, is de facto moving toward more complex forms of dependency and control. Moreover, the tech market in general is developing rapidly, making compliance more complex.

For that reason, Norad is discontinuing the open policy, as we do not want to risk mixed communication, or being seen as preaching one story while in many cases funding another.

Going forward, the Department for Climate, Nature and the Private Sector will therefore not use the Open Policy as a general requirement for new grants. Requirements related to data sharing, licensing, transparency, documentation, interoperability or open publication will still be included in individual agreements where this is realistically achievable.

We will continue to encourage partners to choose solutions that support openness, interoperability, long-term access to data, local ownership and reduced dependency on single vendors or platforms, and work with them to make it achievable wherever possible.

Going forward, partners that demonstrate a credible commitment to openness, interoperability, long-term access to data, local ownership and reduced dependency on single vendors or platforms will be better positioned for support from the Department, but this will not be a general requirement.

The ambition remains the same. Digital investments funded through development cooperation should strengthen local capacity and public value over time. They should not create lock-in or make partner countries more dependent on a small number of global technology providers.