2.
UK – Department for International Development (DFID)
Very good
OVERVIEW
DFID is responsible for approximately 90% of the UK’s ODA and leads on setting development assistance policy. It jointly administers the partially ODA-funded Conflict Pool with FCO and MOD. See UK-wide commitments and recommendations.
DFID is a member of the IATI Steering Committee and was the first organisation to publish to the IATI Standard in January 2011. It updates its IATI files on a monthly basis. DFID should be commended for continuing to improve the quality of its publication and for its efforts in improving the traceability of aid flows. All organisations receiving and managing DFID funds are required to release open data on how the money is spent by publishing to IATI. It launched the Development Tracker – devtracker.dfid.gov.uk – at the OGP Summit in October 2013, representing a major step forward in improving the accessibility of information on UK development assistance by integrating IATI data for NGO implementing partners with its own data and that of other UK government departments. DFID has also piloted traceability with a sample of private sector suppliers, with preliminary data available on Development Tracker. It updated its common standard implementation schedule in June 2014, increasing the number of information items scheduled for publication by the end of 2015 to include most fields of the IATI Standard.
ANALYSIS
DFID scores 88.3%, placing it in the very good category. It ranks second overall and is the top ranking bilateral organisation. This commendable performance is owed to consistent improvements in its IATI publication since 2013. DFID is one of the few organisations publishing the budget ID, which aims to help align information on development flows with recipient country budget classifications. DFID scores the maximum points available for organisation-level planning information, over 90% for activity classifications, basic information and financial data on individual activities and over 80% for performance information (results, conditions and impact appraisals). It performs less well on the provision activity documents, with less than 15% of activities assessed containing contracts, tenders and MoUs and sub-national location information which is available for less than 10% of activities assessed. DFID also does not publish structured results data in IATI. It scores on all 39 indicators included in the Index and of the 22 indicators that take format into account, all are published in IATI XML.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- DFID should work with other UK government aid-spending departments to help them publish to IATI or improve their existing publication, including working with FCO and MOD to publish the activities of the Conflict Pool.
- It should continue to improve the quality and breadth of its IATI data, including project documents, results and conditions data and sub-national location information for all projects.
- DFID should continue to champion work on the IATI budget identifier, aiming for roll out in 2015.
DONOR PROFILE
First published to IATI:
Jan-11
2013 ATI Score:
83.49%
2013 ATI Rank:
3