25.
Australia – Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Fair
OVERVIEW
Have they met the Busan commitment on aid transparency? No.
In November 2013, AusAID was integrated into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) that is now responsible for implementing Australia’s aid programme. DFAT’s regional focus is upon is near vicinity in the Asia-Pacific region.
ANALYSIS
Achievements and progress
- DFAT remains in the ‘fair’ category having made a modest improvement to its score since 2013.
Challenges and room for improvement
- A number of organisation-level indicators (allocation policy, organisation strategy and total budget) are no longer published to the IATI Registry but are published in other formats.
- On performance related indicators, results are published only sometimes while budget identifiers, impact appraisals and conditions are not published at all.
- Activity related-documents are also under published with only objectives currently being published to the IATI Registry.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Australia should aim to publish monthly to the IATI Registry.
- It should prioritise the publication of a full organisation file to the IATI Registry and should aim to publish more activity level information in the IATI Standard.
- It should develop an open aid portal to promote use of its data by all relevant stakeholders.
DONOR PROFILE
2016 Index Score:
Fair
2014 Index Score:
Fair
2013 Index Score:
Fair
First published to IATI:
September 2011
INDICATOR SCORING
TOTAL
49.9%
SECTION A
COMMITMENT TO
AID TRANSPARENCY:
3.49/10
SECTION B
PUBLICATION
ORGANISATION LEVEL:
12.97/25
SECTION C
PUBLICATION
ACTIVITY LEVEL:
33.43/65
Commitment
1. FOIA
2. Implementation Schedules
3. Accessibility
Publication Status
Source
http://www.rti-rating.org/country-data
Comments
Global RTI rating score of 83. Score conversion from total score on Global RTI rating to Index points done using the following scale: 1 - 60: 33 61- 90: 66 91 - 150: 100
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1. FOIA
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Source
http://tracker.publishwhatyoufund.org/plan/organisations/
Comments
Based on total score received on Publish What You Fund's analysis of IATI/Common Standard implementation schedules.
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2. Implementation schedules
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Source
No data available.
Comments
This indicator applies to all organisations and assesses what they are doing to promote access and use of their aid information. Information published to the IATI Registry is taken into account for the publication indicators.
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3. Accessibility
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Planning
Planning
Financial
Financial
4. Organisation Strategy
5. Annual Report
6. Allocation Policy
7. Procurement Policy
8. Country Strategy
9. Total Budget
10. Disaggregated Budgets
11. Audit
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
Comments
DFAT strategy is laid out in its development policy: 'Australian aid: promoting prosperity, reducing poverty, enhancing stability'. DFAT also has a corporate plan 2015-2019 that defines how DFAT will deliver on and measure its performance in delivering the Government’s foreign, trade and investment, and development priorities.
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4. Organisation strategy
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
Comments
As per methodology, relatively general documents outlining which countries, themes and institutions the agency will fund are accepted, as long as this is forward looking and not wholly retrospective. More disaggregated information is expected for the 28 activity-level indicators.
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6. Allocation policy
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 96.67%
Publication Status
Source
Comments
A three year forward looking budget of development assistance is available in the 2015-2016 budget (pp. 71).
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9. Total budget
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Source
Comments
Forward looking disaggregated budgets are available for one year.
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10. Disaggregated budgets
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
No data available.
Comments
Financial statements available in Annual Report 2014-2015; including independent auditor's report (published within regular cycles).
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11. Audit
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Basic
Classifications
Related Documents
Financial
Performance
12. Implementer
13. Unique ID
14. Title
15. Description
16. Planned Dates
17. Actual Dates
18. Current Status
19. Contact Details
20. Collaboration Type
21. Flow Type
22. Aid Type
23. Finance Type
24. Sector
25. Sub-national Location
26. Tied Aid Status
33. Budget
34. Commitments
35. Disbursements And Expenditure
36. Budget Identifier
37. Results
38. Impact Appraisals
39. Conditions
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
There is no comprehensive information on implementers. Some are mentioned but this is not comprehensive or detailed.
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12. Implementer
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 99.69%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 99.71%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 79.94%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 99.94%
Publication Status
Sometimes
Format: Website
Source
No data available.
Comments
Map of activities could not be found on the organisation's website (although link provided in 2014 is still active). It is unclear whether that link still provides current data.
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25. Sub-national location
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Website
Source
Comments
Score changed to always to reflect the independent reviewer's feedback.
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26. Tied Aid Status
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Sometimes
Format: Document
Source
Comments
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is a jointly developed document which details the agreement usually between the organisation (hence the focus on bilateral here) and recipient government for the provision of aid in the country.Strategic frameworks for development cooperation are taken into account with the country strategy indicator and published to IATI.Information on individual activities and projects is collected where sources are availableMoUs,as confirmed by the donor, could be found for Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Afghanistan but not for all countries (eg. Philippines and Solomon Islands).
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27. MoU
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
Comments
Evaluations are published by the Office of Development Effectiveness. This evidence has been accepted in line with what has been accepted for other organisations and no further evidence provided by the independent reviewer.
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28. Evaluations
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 100%
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
There are no budget documents available for individual activities detailing the breakdown of the budget by line-item spending.
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30. Budget Docs
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/corporate/Pages/contracts.aspx
Comments
Summary of contracts up to June 2015 published.
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31. Contracts
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Always
Format: Document
Source
Comments
Tenders appear to be comprehensively published.
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32. Tenders
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 35.24%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 87.04%
Publication Status
IATI
Data quality: 89.69%
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
This information is not published.
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36. Budget Identifier
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Sometimes
Format: Pdf
Source
Comments
Results are sometimes published on project pages. As no comprehensive listing of current or closed activities in Indonesia could be found, this information is considered to be 'sometimes published'.
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37. Results
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
Comments
Pre-project impact appraisals explain the totality of positive and negative, primary and secondary effects expected to be produced by a development intervention. Environmental impact assessments as well as impact assessments which explain what objectives the project itself intends to provide are accepted. It is unclear why this would not apply to all projects and no further justification could be found.Risk assessments appear to be published in the country aid investment plan. No impact appraisals could however be found at the activity-level.
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38. Impact Appraisals
Stage
Status
Format
Source
Comments
Publication Status
Not Published
Source
No data available.
Comments
Performance benchmarks are included in country aid investment plans but not available at the activity-level.
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