CAFOD, the official Catholic aid agency for England and Wales, works to reduce global poverty. They have over 500 partners in more than 40 countries worldwide.

CAFOD joins several other large NGOs in publishing their data to IATI, including Oxfam and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, with more to follow in the coming weeks and months.

CAFOD’s decision to publish this data demonstrates their strong commitment to increased transparency. By publishing their aid information to IATI’s common, open standard, CAFOD are ensuring that their data can be used, compared and re-purposed to meet many different needs.

The range of information published to IATI by CAFOD and other donors will grow over time, increasing its usefulness to stakeholders in partner countries.

To view the data, visit the IATI registry. As more information is released we expect to see a number of graphs and charts emerging based on this data. There are already some developments underway; the IATI Data Explorer allows you to choose specific sets of aid activities to view in depth. The Guardian Global Development website has an array of visualisations based on donor-released data that’s worth viewing. We will shortly be launching AidView, a new IATI data platform.

These projects, along with a number of others currently being worked on, means that data users will be able to view and play with the data in easy-to-understand visualisations.

Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director, announced in the opening remarks of the First Regular Session of the UNICEF Executive Board that:

UNICEF also will be joining the World Bank, DFID, the African Development Bank,
the European Commission, and others, in the International Aid Transparency Initiative, or
IATI. By creating common standards for sharing information about aid flows, IATI should
make that information much more accessible to the public.

Read the full transcript of this document here.

Guided by the  UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF works:

for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.

We welcome UNICEF to IATI and will provide updates on any further news of this signing here, in addition to any publications of IATI data from the organisation.

They are the fourth UN agency to join the initiative, along with UNDP, UNCDF and UNOPS, and work to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities, with the ultimate aim of providing adequate shelter for all. They have responsibility for achieving target 11 of Millenium Development Goal number 7:  to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020.

We welcome UN-HABITAT to IATI and will provide updates on any further news of this signing here, in addition to any publications of IATI data from UN-HABITAT.

UNCDF Executive Secretary, David Morrison, said of their joining the initiative:

UNCDF is committed to the highest standards of transparency and accountability. Increasing aid transparency helps to foster the accountability needed for ensuring development effectiveness. Joining IATI means our work – from strengthening financial sectors and making them more inclusive, to working with local governments to improve infrastructure investment and delivery of basic services – will meet the highest international standards of transparency.

We welcome UNCDF to IATI as the 27th donor to sign up.  We will announce any publication of IATI data by UNCDF and any further information on their signing here, so please check back regularly for updates or contact us.

You’re gonna need a bigger boat

In a really exciting week of announcements, we are very pleased to confirm that five new and diverse signatories have joined IATI this week. In chronological order: Canadian CIDA, the Inter-American Development Bank, the United States, CDC and UN Capital Development Fund. This brings the total number of signatories up to 27. As a result of this week’s announcements, IATI signatories already account for 80% of official development finance.

If the idea is 10% – implementation, hard work, and luck are the other 90%

A terrific last-minute rush in the run up to HLF4 has seen a further five organisations publish to IATI in the past few days: Finland, the Asian Development Bank, the Global Fund, Oxfam GB and Publish What You Fund. In total, 19 organisations including 13 signatories have so far published information through the IATI Registry.

Being part of the furniture

Transparency was a hot topic during negotiations on the Busan Outcome Document. In the final text, released today as the “Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation”, transparency features as a Shared Principle and as specific commitments in para 23 to:

a) Make the full range of information on publicly funded development activities, their

financing, terms and conditions, and contribution to development results, publicly

available subject to legitimate concerns about commercially sensitive information.

b) Focus, at the country level, on establishing transparent public financial management and

aid information management systems, and strengthen the capacities of all relevant

stakeholders to make better use of this information in decision–‐making and to promote

accountability.

c) Implement a common, open standard for electronic publication of timely, comprehensive

and forward–‐looking information on resources provided through development co-operation,

taking into account the statistical reporting of the OECD–‐DAC and the

complementary efforts of the International Aid Transparency Initiative and others. This

standard must meet the information needs of developing countries and non–‐state actors,

consistent with national requirements. We will agree on this standard and publish our

respective schedules to implement it by December 2012, with the aim of implementing it

fully by December 2015.

In the IATI Secretariat, we believe that the text provides a solid and positive foundation for progress in the coming months to build on collective IATI achievements to date. The priorities now are for donors who have not yet joined IATI to do so and plan implementation, for those who have signed IATI to implement, and for everyone to use the increasing pool of IATI data to, for example, create a virtuous circle through providing valuable feedback from aid beneficiaries to providers in order to maximise the impact of aid on poverty reduction.

As the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in the Republic of Korea comes to a close, CDC, the UK’s financial development institute join 25 other signatories to the initiative, increasing and strengthening their commitment to transparency and accountability.

UK International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell welcomed this “crucial new step” for the CDC, entering a new era of increased transparency. By joining the IATI, the CDC commit to publishing information on their investments in private sector businesses across the developing world, to a common international standard that will make their information more open and accessible.

The CDC’s investment in nearly 1000 private sector businesses has a value of approximately £2 billion. Their participation in IATI will be an important addition to the current stakeholders, and indicates the value of IATI has in engaging with the broad range of new development actors, including the private sector, that are now being recognised as a vital part of the development cooperation picture.

In a press release issued yesterday, the CDC’s Chief Executive, Diana Noble commented,

Our decision to sign up to IATI comes as part of our increasing commitment to transparency and to demonstrating the value for money and impact that CDC’s investment in poor countries brings. On our own website cdcgroup.com, we already publish details of the investments we have made that support almost 1,000 businesses and over 3 million lives. We are determined to go further and help those interested in development better understand the way we invest.

Following similar announcements by Canadian CIDA, CDC, and the Inter-American Development Bank in Busan yesterday, this brings the total number of IATI signatories to 26.

The US is the world’s largest bilateral donor with annual aid commitments of $30bn. With CIDA and the US on board, IATI signatories now account for around 80% of global Official Development Finance[i].

The US has been engaged in the IATI process from the outset as an observer, and has already taken a number of steps to increase the transparency of its aid information, such as the launch of the US Foreign Assistance Dashboard.

Publication to IATI’s common, open standard will make this information much easier to find, use and compare. This in turn will help donors and developing country governments to plan and manage precious aid resources more effectively, and maximise the impact of aid in reducing poverty. And it will help parliaments, civil society organisations and citizens in both aid-giving and aid-receiving countries to hold their governments to account for aid spending.

If you are attending HLF4 and want to learn more about IATI, please contact our delegation:

Simon Parrish (simon@devinit.org, tel +82 1058 504 608) or

Isabel Bucknall (isabelb@devinit.org, tel + 82 1058 504 624)

Canada has been engaged in IATI from the outset, attending Steering Committee meetings as an observer and contributing to the work of IATI’s Technical Advisory Group. CIDA has already taken steps to increase the transparency of its aid under Canada’s Open Government initiative.

By joining IATI, CIDA is taking a further step towards making its aid information more accessible to partner countries, CSOs and citizens. Publication to IATI’s common, open standard, will help all of these stakeholders to find, use and compare this information, allowing them to re-purpose the data to meet a wide variety of individual needs.

Transparency is a central theme for all stakeholders in this forum, and civil society representatives have spent much time over the past days discussing the importance of transparency not only as a donor priority, but also as a priority within their own civil society position.

As agreed by the IATI Steering Committee earlier in 2011, a small group of CSOs has come together to form the beginning of a working group which will discuss the application of the IATI Standard to CSOs. The group is being co-chaired by Beris Gwynne, representing the INGO Accountability Charter and Brian Tomlinson, representing the CSO Open Forum, and includes representation from NGO umbrella bodies in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, and other CSOs that have been engaged with the IATI process, including Transparency International and Publish What You Fund.

The group have produced a short briefing note, in collaboration with the Technical Advisory Group Secretariat, outlining the details of the group and contact information for those who wish to engage.

This is a welcome step, helping to explore application of the Standard to other actors in the aid arena. The IATI Secretariat look forward to engaging with the CSO Working Group, and learning from the experiences of the four CSOs that are already publishing data: DIPR, Engineers Without Borders Canada, The International HIV/AIDS Alliance and Oxfam GB.

By the end of today, five further organisations will have published to the IATI Registry – Global Fund, Finland, Spain, UNDP, Oxfam and The Indigo Trust, and a further three are working to do so before HLF4 begins next week.

For full details on the implementation status of individual IATI signatories you can view our graphic, Publishing IATI: The Road to Busan, but in summary, the picture is as follows:

Twelve signatories have now published IATI data: Australia, EU, Finland, Global Fund, Hewlett Foundation, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, UK, UNOPS, UNDP and World Bank. A further three —Denmark, Switzerland, and Asian Development Bank—are working to publish prior to Busan. Four Civil Society Organisations have already published data—Oxfam, Development Initiatives Poverty Research, Engineers Without Borders Canada and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. One additional foundation (Indigo Trust) has also published.

Those publishing so far provide some 42% of Official Development Assistance and Other Official Flows (average for 2008-09), with information from the Hewlett Foundation, the Indigo Trust, UNOPS and four CSOs being additional to this. Once all existing signatories publish their information this figure will increase to 64%. Previously stated interest from Canada and the US in aligning with the IATI standard would bring the coverage up to 80%.

This rush to publish demonstrates strong commitment to increased transparency as the foundation for improved aid effectiveness, and firm support for the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) as the means of delivery. By publishing their aid information to IATI’s common, open standard, these organisations are ensuring that their data can be used, compared and re-purposed to meet many different needs.

The range of information published to IATI by these donors, and others, will grow over time, increasing its usefulness to stakeholders in partner countries.

To view the data, visit the IATI registry. As more information is released by donors over time, we expect to see a number of graphs and charts emerging based on this data. There are already some developments underway; the IATI Data Explorer allows you to choose specific sets of aid activities to view in depth. The Guardian Global Development website has an array of visualisations based on donor-released data that’s worth taking a look at.

These projects, along with a number of others currently being worked on, means that data users will be able to view, and play with, the data in easy-to-understand visualisations.

If you would like more information on IATI’s activities at Busan please visit our IATI in Busan page.