*The following list is a work in progress and only meant as a partial illustration of the variety of current aid data initiatives. It should not be seen as an acknowledgement of the quality or relevance of the published data and information.

Aid Data Sources

Global data sources and visualization platforms

  • Data Portals
    A list of 500+ open data portals from around the world curated by a group of open data experts – including representatives from local, regional and national governments, international organisations such as the World Bank, and numerous NGOs.
  • UNdata
    This site, managed by the United Nations Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs offers a way to search and download a variety of statistical resources of the UN system.
  • OECD DAC
    The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is a forum to discuss issues surrounding aid, development and poverty reduction in developing countries. One of the DAC’s main functions has been to collect and publish statistics on aid flow. It is widely used by other organisations (such as the World Bank), and scholars, as a general measure of aid in spite of the fact that it is not an entirely comprehensive measure. It doesn’t include aid from private sources, including NGO’s, which accounts to about 10-15% of aid.

  • International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)
    IATI is a multi-stakeholder initiative that has brought together donors, developing country governments, civil society and aid information experts to agree on a common, open, international standard for publishing information about aid spending.

    • d-portal.org
      d-portal.org       is a country-based information platform that tracks resource flows. It is aimed at providing line ministries, parliamentarians and civil society in developing countries with information that can assist with the planning and monitoring of development activities. It contains current data published through the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) as well as the most recent aggregated data published to the OECD DAC Creditor Reporting System.
  • OCHA‘s Financial Tracking Service (FTS)
    A global, real-time database that records all reported international humanitarian aid contributions (including NGOs and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, bilateral aid, in-kind aid, and private donations). Managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, FTS focuses on humanitarian response plans (HRPs) and refugee response plans (RRPs).
  • The Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)
    OCHA‘s open platform to share and make humanitarian data easy to find and use for analysis.
  • The European Union’s EDRIS system
    EDRIS contains real time information on ECHO (EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department) and Member States’ contributions to humanitarian aid.
  • Open Data Inception project
    A lists of… 2500+ open data portals aggregated and curated by French company OpenDataSoft.

Recipient Country platforms (Aid Information Management Systems & Open data platforms)

  • Cambodia –
  • Democratic Republic of Congo – Plateforme de Gestion de l’Aide et des Investissements (PGAI): http://public.pga.ministereduplan.cd/
  • Ethiopia – Open data portal for Ethiopia
  • Kenya – Kenya Open Data Initiative
  • India – Open Government Data Platform
  • Myanmar – Mohinga Aid Transparency Portal: http://mohinga.info/en/
  • Nepal’s Aid Management Platform – Operated by the Ministry of Finance, this site provides public access to the system that the Government and development partners use to manage aid in Nepal.
  • Rwanda – Development Assistance Database (DAD): http://dad.minecofin.gov.rw/
  • South Sudan – Open Data for South Sudan

Donor Country platforms

Donor Organization Data Platforms

Other Data Sources and Visualisation Platforms

Global Humanitarian Aid Flows

Online Classes, Tutorials and Toolkits

Aid Data

School of Data – Ecole des Données
School of Data works to empower civil society organizations, journalists and citizens with the skills they need to use data effectively. It is led by the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) and Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU)

Open Development Toolkit
Aid Data Curriculum developed in 2014 and supported by OKFN and Development Initiatives. The toolkit is now hosted by OKFN’s School of Data.

  1. Jargon busting the world of aid (PDF – 338 Kb)
  2. Introduction to aid data (PDF – 718 Kb)
  3. A guide to IATI data (PDF – 1 Mb)
  4. Cleaning IATI data with OpenRefine (PDF – 896 Kb)
  5. An introduction to OECD DAC Data (PDF – 413 Kb)
  6. An introduction to data visualisation (PDF – 236 Kb)
  7. Inspiration module – how is aid data used in the media? PDF – 1.2 Mb)

 

Aid and Budget Analysis

Aid and budget transparency training modules
A series of six modules created to develop and strengthen the skills, capacities and strategic visions of civil society organisations working in the areas of aid and budget analysis, monitoring and advocacy. The modules were developed using content created by Development Initiatives, Integrity Action, the International Budget Partnership and Publish What You Fund.

  1. Introduction to development aid, budgets and accountability (PDF – 236 Kb)
  2. Accessing aid information: Data sources (PDF -251 Kb)
  3. Right to information (PDF -251 Kb)
  4. Analysing aid and budgets (PDF -327 Kb)
  5. Using aid and budget analysis for advocacy (PDF -283 Kb)
  6. Monitoring aid and budget transparency (PDF -294 Kb)

Handbook for Analyzing Public Budgets in Sexual and Reproductive Health
This guide (PDF – 14.6 Mb), created by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, ‘explains how to analyze the public budget in sexual and reproductive health, including how to identify relevant data and where to find it. It offers easy-to-use tools, including step-by-step questions and exercises, which help citizens who aren’t budget specialists to get the information they need to develop messages for political advocacy campaigns’. Other IPPF guides: Handbook for Budget Analysis and Tracking in Advocacy Projects, Handbook for Advocacy Planning, and Handbook for Political Analysis and Mapping.

International Budget Partnership Training Modules
Access to Information for Budget Work – Civil Society Budget Work: Using Budgets to Achieve Impact

Access to Information

The Aid Transparency Toolkit
This toolkit provides answers to basic questions such as: What is the right of access to information? How do I get information about aid? Who can I make a request? Where do I start looking? Do I have to pay a fee? How should I formulate my request? Who do I send it to? When will I receive the answer? What do I do if my request is ignored or refused? It was published in October 2009 by Access Info Europe, a Madrid-based human rights organisation dedicated to promoting and protecting the right of access to information in Europe.

Right2INFO.org
Right2INFO.org brings together information on the legal frameworks for the right to information from more than 100 countries.

Africa Freedom of Information Centre
AFIC is a pan-African NGO and resource centre that promotes the right of access to information through comparative research, coordinating regional advocacy, facilitating information-sharing and capacity building. Its publications include State of Right to Information in Africa 2015 Report which analyzes the situation of 15 African countries.

 

Data Journalism

Learno
An initiative of the European Journalism Centre (EJC) which aims to enable more journalists, editors, news developers and designers to make better use of data and incorporate it further into their work. Learno offers a series of free video tutorials for journalists and concerned citizens: Google Search for Journalists – Verification: The Basics – Doing Journalism with Data: First Steps, Skills and Tools – Managing Data Journalism Projects.

The Verification Handbook (available in English, French, Spanish and many other languages)
A great and free resource for journalists and aid providers, it provides the tools, techniques and step-by-step guidelines for how to deal with user-generated content (UGC) during emergencies. Also free to download: the Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting and Verification Handbook: Additional Materials.

Impact Evaluation

 

Impact Evaluation Repository-3ie
3ie is an international grant-making NGO promoting evidence-informed development policies and programmes.

J-PAL – the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab
A searchable database of 729 randomized evaluations conducted in 67 countries.

World Bank  Documents and Reports
A searchable list World Bank curated list of impact evaluation documents.

 

Social Accountability

Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) Knowledge Platform
GPSA is a global partnership within the World Bank Group. It aims to provide strategic support to civil society organizations’ (CSOs) social accountability initiatives to improve governance and service delivery. The Knowledge Platform, complemented with offline activities, has been envisioned as the main tool for supporting the learning, networking and knowledge exchange of the GPSA’s grantees and of other CSOs working on social accountability in the global south.

Making All Voices Count
A global initiative that supports innovation, scaling-up, and research to help harness new technologies to enable citizen engagement and government responsiveness.

Transparency International’s Data and Research per country

Open Data Handbook
Guides, case studies and resources for government & civil society on the “what, why & how” of open data. Produced by the Open Knowledge Foundation.