Country Development Finance Data

IATI Country Development Finance Data tool responds to the needs of data users for a simple Excel-formatted set of data on projections and spending by country or region. These users include governments, civil society organisations, providers of development finance, amongst others.

What does Country Development Finance Data tool offer?

The Country Development Finance Data (CDFD) tool allows users to download Excel outputs that are designed to enable easy analysis in pivot tables, including:

• Quarterly aggregations of budgets, commitments, disbursements, and expenditure, by country/region;
• Aggregations by reporting organisation (and type), sector, aid type, finance type, and implementing organisation, among other data fields.

The CDFD tool also provides useful features to ensure that data can be visualised and downloads customised according to data users’ needs:

• Data Dashboard feature: Visualise the data in useful summary maps,charts, and tables. Explore a summary dashboard and dashboards by Country/Region, Reporting Organisation, and Sector.
• Custom Data Download feature: View and download customised spreadsheets of data using a range of filters to select the data you need based on your interest. Select the columns to be included in your spreadsheet and filter it by calendar year or quarter, budgets and/or spending, reporting organization, type of aid (e.g. loan or grant) and more.
• Translated versions: The interface, data, dashboards, and custom data download are all available in French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Who is it for?

The tool has been developed and updated in close consultation with a range of data users. CDFD is particularly useful to partner country governments for analysing external development finance for budget planning and monitoring. Development partners and civil society organisations have also provided feedback that CDFD is useful for enabling them to easily understand and analyse IATI data. For example, to inform the coordination of development activities with other donors or implementing organisations, to gain a better understanding of future funding opportunities, or to improve accountability in the use of external resources. CDFD is open and free to use by anyone with an interest in finding development financing information by country or region.

Why was this developed?

“In order to be successful in delivering on its objectives, IATI must prioritise the particular data needs and challenges of partner countries.” This priority was identified in the IATI Strategic Plan 2020-25, and developing this tool brings IATI a step closer to meeting the needs of data users in partner countries.

The tool ensures that a standard set of essential data is available in a user-friendly and familiar Excel format. In this way it can be directly accessed by countries looking to fill data gaps at the national level, including governments that do not use national aid information management systems (AIMS). The tool was initially informed by work in 2020 to support the governments of Nigeria and Chad to use IATI data for budget planning and in development cooperation reports. This provided the IATI Secretariat with valuable learning on the types and formats of data that CDFD should provide.

Based on feedback received from a range of data users, the tool was updated in 2022. This feedback came from dozens of trainings and support calls with data users from partner country governments, civil society, development partners, and analysts. It was also collected through workshops delivered in Rwanda (May 2022), Nigeria (June 2022), and Thailand (November 2022) where at least 58 government representatives from 49 countries, more than 75 civil society representatives from national and international CSOs, and more than 25 representatives from development partners were trained on using CDFD to access and analyse IATI data. All the feedback received informed the new features and improvements to CDFD.

What guidance and support is available to use the tool?

While the tool is fast, simple and intuitive to use, CDFD provides useful data notes, guidance, and the methodology on how the data is processed.For more information and support on using IATI’s Country Development Finance Data (CDFD) tool:

• Reach out directly to the IATI Secretariat at [email protected]
• Visit IATI’s Data Use Query Corner
• Join the Data Use Community of Practice on IATI Connect
• View CDFD instructional videos on understanding and analysing Excel spreadsheets on data by country/region:

Introduction to IATI Country Development Finance tool (FR, ES, PT)

How to access and understand data on external development finance (FR, ES, PT)

How to analyse data on external development finance (FR, ES, PT)