The most effective decision-making takes place when it is informed by reliable data. Pillar 3 of the Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI) seeks to support the appropriate use of data in decision-making in a range of resilience planning, risk reduction, financing, preparedness, and recovery contexts. OpenDRI does this by supporting the adoption of tools and processes which support engagement, risk visualization, and communication.

Design for Impact Framework: Integrating Open Data and Risk Communication for Decision-Making represents a foundational first attempt by OpenDRI to address this challenge. It aims to provide project designers with a framework to guide them in developing projects that have a tight handshake between the development of risk data and real world decision-making.

The Design for Impact Framework has its intellectual grounding in a review of academic literature related to risk communication, climate information services, civic technology, citizen science, and design for community resilience. It draws heavily on the guiding approaches and tactics used by over 23 successful projects developed to reduce disaster risk and build resilience in an extensive range of geographies and contexts.