As you might imagine, as soon as one year’s Aid Transparency Index (ATI) is finalised and out of the door – or on our site – we turn our minds to the next year that lies ahead.

The launch always seems like a date far away at that point, but as this is our fourth year putting together the ATI, we’ve learned how to avoid it sneaking up on our research team!

This year, we’re starting data collection for the 2014 Index in April. That means today. As with previous ATIs, data collection will last for three months and we’ll work closely with donor organisations and our independent reviewers to make sure that that data we collect is as accurate as possible. Also, as in previous years, we’re only looking at current data (data that is less than one year old and can therefore be used for planning and budgeting purposes).

As always, the organisations being assessed range from traditional bilaterals and multilaterals, to south-south providers and development finance institutions. In total, we’re looking at 68 donor organisations this year. Eagle-eyed readers may spot that’s one more than last year – this is because Croatia will be included for the first time in 2014. The criteria used for selecting organisations are detailed in the FAQs.

For consistency, we will use the same 39 indicators as last year – although one indicator has been tightened based on feedback from donor organisations and peer reviewers. Activity budgets (indicator 33) need to be broken down by quarter for one year forward. We’re also going to manually check more documents this year to make sure they are what they say they are. The full list of indicators and the detail of what information we will accept for each of them is available in the indicator guidelines.

We will also look at the frequency of publication more closely this year. We believe it is important to reward frequently published IATI data, with quarterly being the minimum aim and monthly being best practice, as identified by partner countries as being more useful for planning purposes in the recent AIMS survey. Note that only IATI data is scored on frequency as we haven’t found an accurate way to monitor frequency of publication for data published in other formats. We’d welcome your thoughts on how we might do this.

For those organisations that publish IATI data, this needs to be on the IATI Registry in order to be taken into account this year. This is in recognition that it is easier to locate and use than data published in lots of different locations.

All 68 organisations will be given the opportunity to review what information we are collecting and to share their feedback during April–June. Both the organisation being assessed and an independent reviewer will be involved to make sure our assessment is as objective as possible. If you’re interested in helping us with this then please get in touch: 2014tracker@publishwhatyoufund.org