Authors: Outes Velarde, J., Chauhan, M., Grennan, E., Nagarajan, S. & Paul, O.
Organisation: Government Outcomes Lab (GO Lab)
The International Network on Data for Impact and Government Outcomes – INDIGO – is a data and learning collaborative where different organisations share their data on a voluntary basis with the aim of creating a series of open data assets and advancing our understanding of outcomes-based contracting. The Impact Bond Dataset and the Pipeline dataset are examples of this collaborative approach. Every six months, we take stock of the new data on projects or upcoming projects and offer a snapshot of the landscape of impact bonds across the world.
The first section of this report describes the distribution of impact bond projects across countries and regions. A series of data visualisations explore which countries are leading the way on a number of dimensions of scale, including number of projects, number of targeted or actual service users, and how much upfront capital they raised. In addition, this section provides a description of the new additions to our datasets since January 2023 and a recap of the international impact bonds (those projects where at least one outcome funder is a foreign organisation).
The second section provides an overview of the new data visualisations that were published in September 2023. As part of the Life Chances Fund transparency agenda, we are working alongside the delivery partnership and the impact bond projects to release interim data on outcome achievements and outcome payments. This second section presents two prototype data visualisations for the Skill Mill project and the project’s interpretation of their performance data. We hope that this ‘sneak peek’ will create excitement and enthusiasm to start a broader discussion around the best metrics and standards to represent the successes and difficulties that these projects are experiencing.
This report uses data as of 09 October 2023. The Impact Bond Dataset is open to any policymaker, researcher or data enthusiast who is interested in impact bonds; and it can be downloaded here.