Tracking aid and other international development finance in real time
This interactive data tool lets you track commitments and disbursements of aid and other global development finance between January 2018 and April 2023.
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Subscribe nowThis interactive data tool shows data from between January 2018 and April 2023, letting you track commitments and disbursements of aid and other global development finance.
Use the three charts to view commitments and disbursements[1] of aid and other global development finance published by different bilateral and multilateral donors and international financial institutions. Our tracker gives a picture of trends in:
- Overall commitments and disbursements
- Poverty targeting
- Sector targeting
The tracker uses data sourced from the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Data from IATI is not curated and therefore subject to change as donors publish new information. This could result in changes to aspects of historical transactions as well as the movement of transactions from one month to another.[2]
See our methodology section for more detail.
We are no longer updating this page, which enabled the tracking of aid and other international development finance in near real time. Please get in touch if you have feedback or questions.
Real-time international development finance flow tracker
The data in this tool covers January 2018–April 2023.
To view this interactive visualisation make sure JavaScript is available on your device.
To view this interactive visualisation use a device with a larger screen.
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The data tool contains three interactive charts, which you can see by moving between the tabs. The data visualisations are best viewed on a desktop in the Chrome browser.
The controls above each chart allow you to manipulate different views of the data. You can then hover your cursor over (if on desktop) or tap (if on tablet or mobile) the bars to get more detail.
Across all three of the data visualisations, you can:
- Compare types of donors or view individual donors, using the switch under ‘Donors’.
a) If comparing types of donors, add or remove categories using the checkboxes.
b) If looking at an individual donor, choose which donor you would like to see from the dropdown.
- View aid commitments or disbursements using the dropdown under ‘Transaction’.
- View aid by volume or proportion using the dropdown under ‘Measure’.
- Add or remove years using the checkboxes under ‘Years’.
The x-axis and y-axis will automatically adjust based on your selections.
Flows
Within the ‘Flows’ visualisation you can also:
- Add or remove flows using the checkboxes under ‘Flows’.
Poverty targeting
Within the ‘Poverty targeting’ visualisation you can also:
- View targeting of aid towards countries where a large percentage of the population live in extreme poverty, low-income countries or the least developed countries (LDCs), using the dropdown under ‘Poverty indicator’.
a) If looking at rates of poverty, add or remove bandings for the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty using the checkboxes.
b) If looking at country income, add or remove income groupings using the checkboxes.
c) If looking at LDCs, add or remove LDCs or other countries using the checkboxes.
Sector targeting
Within the ‘Sector targeting’ visualisation you can also:
- View targeting of aid towards specific sectors.
The data in the most recent edition of the tracker was updated on 30 June 2023.
Source: Development Initiatives based on IATI.
Notes: IFI = International financial institution; LDCs = Least developed countries; ODA = Official development assistance; OOF = Other official flows.
Development Initiatives publishes a range of analysis and evidence on global development finance, including:
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Metadata
Dataset title: Tracking aid and other global development finance in real time
Author: Alex Miller and Jenny Rickard
Source: IATI
Timeframe: January 2018–April 2023
Geography: Global
License: Creative Commons Attribution BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license
Citation: Development Initiatives, June 2023. Tracking aid and other international development finance in near real time. Available at: www.devinit.org/data/tracking-aid-international-development-real-time
Terminology
Acronyms
ODA – Official development assistance
OOF – Other official flows
IATI – International Aid Transparency Initiative
IFI – International financial institution
LDCs – Least developed countries
Glossary of key terms
Aid – In this context, all humanitarian and development assistance, including official development assistance, other official flows and any other development flows reported by official actors to the International Aid Transparency Initiative.
Commitments – Amounts the donor is contracted to disburse.
Disbursements – Actual spend by donor in fulfilment of a contract.
Official development assistance – Defined by the OECD DAC.
Other official flows – Defined by the OECD DAC.
People living in extreme poverty – People living on less than PPP$2.15 a day.
Methodology
This tracker analyses transactions published to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). A direct download was taken on 30 June 2023 of all the data in the IATI registry. Each transaction was split by recipient and sector classifications to visualise aggregates of poverty targeting and sectoral priorities.
The data tool features a selected group of key bilateral donors, international financial institutions and multilateral institutions reporting to IATI. DI has assessed whether the data provided by these donors for both disbursements and commitments is usable or not.
The full list of donors included in this analysis is in Table A1.
This tracker is by necessity limited to the data that is published to a sufficient standard and in a timely fashion, and is not therefore a comprehensive picture of all donors. Despite this, IATI data has reached a sufficient level of quality and coverage to enable critical analysis of near real-time trends. The data provides a vital early warning system on current aid spending as donors seek to better respond to current and ongoing global challenges, such as those caused by Covid-19.
Some notable exclusions are:
- The UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (who do not provide commitment data for all activities).
- Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (who report total disbursement data for each activity on the latest transaction date).
- France's Agence Française de Développement (who report data on activities cumulatively).
In early February 2023, the Federal Government of the United States split into 18 additional publishers, one for each agency reporting data. It is our understanding that this new data is derived from the same database as they use to report to the CRS, and therefore we have included them since our February 2023 update. We will continue to monitor how the US publishes to evaluate whether its data is of sufficient quality to use in our updates.
In our poverty targeting visualisation, in transitioning from a $1.90 extreme poverty line (2013 PPP) to a $2.15 extreme poverty line (2017 PPP), there were also a number of notable shifts in the poverty data as reported by the World Bank. Some countries that previously had data, such as Afghanistan, no longer do. Additionally, some country poverty estimates have changed substantially.
In our last three updates, we have noticed a deviation in the figures that Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has published to IATI and the CRS for 2021. This deviation may be caused by differences in the ODA accounting of in-kind vaccine donations, but our investigation into the cause is still ongoing.
In the last update, UNICEF's 2022 ODA disbursement figure increased to US$15.75 billion, almost doubling its previously published value of US$8 billion. It was also noticed that total flows targeting sectors do not align with total flows for some donors in the charts above, these differences are caused in some instances by sector level data being unavailable. We are currently looking into resolving this issue.
The World Bank country classifications used for the 'Poverty targeting' tab are due to be updated in July 2023. While we await that release, the categories used for Q1 2023 have been carried forward from 2022.
Table A1: Key bilateral donors, IFIs and multilateral institutions used in the analysis of IATI disbursements and commitments
Institutions | Disbursements | Commitments |
---|---|---|
Bilateral donors | ||
Australian Aid | No | No |
Belgium – Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (DGD) | Yes | No |
Canada – Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) | Yes | Yes |
Denmark – Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Yes | Yes |
European Commission (EC) – International Partnerships | Yes | Yes |
EC – Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) | Yes | Yes |
EC – Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) | No | No |
EC – European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) | Yes | Yes |
EC – European Investment Bank (EIB) | No | Yes |
Finland – Ministry for Foreign Affairs | Yes | Yes |
Germany – Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) | No | Yes |
Germany – Federal Foreign Office | Yes | Yes |
Netherlands – Enterprise Agency (RvO) | Yes | Yes |
Netherlands – Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) | Yes | Yes |
New Zealand – Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade | Yes | Yes |
Norway – Norway Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) | No | No |
Spain – Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) | No | No |
Sweden – Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) | Yes | Yes |
Switzerland – Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) | Yes | Yes |
UK – British Council | Yes | Yes |
UK – Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) | Yes | Yes |
UK – Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) | Yes | No |
UK – Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) | Yes | No |
US – Millennium Challenge Corporation | Yes | Yes |
US – US Agency for International Development (USAID) | Yes | Yes |
US – Peace Corp | Yes | Yes |
US – Department of State | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Trade and Development Agency | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. African Development Foundation | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Health and Human Services | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S Department of Justice | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of Commerce | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of Labor | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of Homeland Security | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of Agriculture | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of Energy | Yes | Yes |
US – Inter-American Foundation | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. International Development Finance Corporation | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Federal Trade Commission | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of the Treasury | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of Defense | Yes | Yes |
US – U.S. Department of Interior | Yes | Yes |
International financial institutions (IFIs) | ||
African Development Bank Group (AfDB) | Yes | Yes |
Asian Development Bank (ADB) | Yes | Yes |
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) | Yes | Yes |
International Finance Corporation (IFC) | No | No |
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) | Yes | Yes |
Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) | Yes | Yes |
World Bank | Yes | Yes |
Multilateral institutions | ||
Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance | Yes | Yes |
Global Fund | Yes | Yes |
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) | Yes | No |
International Development Law Organization (IDLO) | Yes | No |
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) | Yes | Yes |
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) | Yes | No |
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | Yes | No |
UN Population Fund (UNFPA) | No | No |
United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) | Yes | Yes |
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) | Yes | No |
Unitaid | Yes | Yes |
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) | Yes | Yes |
UNOCHA – Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) | Yes | No |
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) | No | No |
World Food Programme (WFP) | Yes | Yes |
Source: Development Initiatives based on IATI.
Notes: IFI = international financial institution; IATI = International Aid Transparency Initiative.
Notes
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1
Commitments are amounts the donor is contracted to disburse. Disbursements are actual spend by donor in fulfilment of a contract.Return to source text
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2
This can be due, for example, to adjustments between operations and accounting departments, journal entries to deal with accrual accounting or cumulative reporting over a quarter.Return to source text
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