Commitment

This category of indicators reflects the extent to which organisations have demonstrated an overall commitment to making their aid more transparent. The average score for this category is 40% of the total possible score. Cyprus is the only donor that does not score at all for commitment to transparency. 35 of 67 organisations have project databases or data portals, which are assessed as part of the accessibility indicator. Only nine – Canada, DFID, ECHO, IFC, MCC, Norway, Sweden, UNDP and World Bank IDA – score on all three criteria used for this indicator (allows free bulk export of data; provides disaggregated, detailed data on activities; and data is released under an open licence). 36 out of 67 donors have produced IATI or common standard implementation schedules – of which 26 are less than ‘ambitious’ schedules.

Publication – organisation level

This category of indicators reflects the extent to which organisations are making available planning and financial information relating to their organisation as a whole. Organisations’ planning information is most likely to be published; GAVI and MCC score the highest possible score for this sub-group of indicators (strategy, annual report, allocation policy, procurement policy and country strategy). 10 others score over 90% of the total possible score. China is the only one that does not score on any organisation planning indicators. The information items most likely to be published in some format at this level are: the annual report, organisation strategy (both published by 60 out of 67 organisations), allocation policy and procurement policy (both published by 59 out of 67). 21 organisations do not consistently publish country-specific strategies.

Basic organisation financial information such as total budget, disaggregated budgets and audit is much less likely to be published, although Canada, DFID, GAVI and UNDP all score well in this category (over 80% of the total possible score for this sub-group of indicators). 10 donors do not score at all for publishing these indicators: Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta and Spain. In addition, the EBRD, Gates Foundation and Japan MOFA, do not publish any forward-looking budgets.

Publication – activity level

The third category of indicators reflects the extent to which organisations make aid information available on specific activities. The results show that organisations are still struggling to publish activity-level information consistently, on average scoring less than a third of the total possible score for this category of indicators. Most activity information that is published is basic, such as the implementing organisation, unique activity ID, title, description, planned and actual dates, current status and contact details; although only 53 out of 67 organisations publish project titles consistently. 52 organisations do not publish budget documents, 19 do not publish the overall cost of activities and 33 do not publish the current status of activities.

The publication of added-value fields (sub-national location, results, conditions and project documents) continues to be poor. Activity performance information (information on results, conditions and impact appraisals) is least likely to be published, with 46 organisations not scoring on any of these indicators. GAVI and MCC score very highly for these indicators, however, getting scores of over 90% for this type of information. Nine donors (China, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan MOFA, Lithuania, Malta and UK FCO) score zero for activity documents. Only GAVI and MCC publish information linking aid to recipient budgets.