Publish What You Fund wholly welcomes the introduction of machine-readable code lists by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC).

Last year, our resident tecchie Andy Lulham blogged about creating his own maintained, machine-readable DAC-CRS code lists in partnership with Open Knowledge. It is excellent to see that the DAC has now committed to “providing the DAC codelist in XML format (CLv3) in version 2.01 of the IATI Standard“. They go on to say:

XML format is the computer-readable “mark-up” language used by programmers to extract and present data in a comparable and accessible way. Data will now also be comparable to the standard process put in place by the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), with whom the OECD has worked closely together in this exercise.

The DAC CRS code lists are used by donors to report on their aid flows – both to the DAC and also IATI. Ensuring that the lists are kept in sync is now critical in order for users to trust the data. There is a thread on IATI Discuss for anyone wishing to engage in this issue further.