Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Overview
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is responsible for Australia’s development cooperation policy and implementing its aid programme. It spends the majority of Australia’s ODA budget and aims to contribute to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. Australia’s International Development Policy prioritises locally led development and includes commitments on partnership, gender equality, disability equity and rights, climate change, and humanitarian response. In December 2024, Australia launched a new development data portal – AusDevPortal. Australia became a member of IATI in 2008 and first published IATI data in September 2011.
Analysis
DFAT moved back into the ‘Fair’ category after falling to ‘Poor’ in the 2024 Index, when it had paused publication to IATI. The resumption of IATI publication formed part of a wider effort to rebuild transparency and accountability following the introduction of Australia’s International Development Policy in 2023. DFAT has also published Development Partnership Plans and launched AusDevPortal, which draws largely on its IATI data to make information about Australia’s development investments easier to access and use.
Of the organisational planning and commitments indicators, DFAT improved its score by nearly two points. It now publishes all its core organisational documents, including an organisation strategy, annual report, procurement and allocation policies, in its IATI organisational file. Its audit report was published in other formats. DFAT lost points for not consistently publishing up-to-date country strategy documents.
DFAT performed above average with regard to finance and budgets. DFAT scored well on four of the seven indicators, while six of the seven indicators were published in the IATI Standard. DFAT improved on its organisational budget score compared to the 2024 Index by publishing a three-year forward-looking budget. However, DFAT lost points as only a small number of activity-level project budgets were found, while no project budget documentation was found. DFAT also lost points for not consistently publishing disaggregated budgets for all the countries it currently works in.
DFAT’s largest component improvement was in project attributes, where it gained more than 11 points compared with 2024. It published all indicators to IATI. Conditions failed the quality tests because there was no clear statement explaining why conditions were not attached to projects. DFAT also lost location points because location information was inconsistent or inaccurate across its activities.
Although DFAT scored below average for joining-up development data, it improved by nearly 11 points compared with 2024. It did not publish IATI data for the Networked data – transactions with valid receivers test and lost further points because contracts and tenders were not published consistently.
DFAT’s weakest component was performance, where its score fell slightly compared with 2024. It published objectives, results, and reviews and evaluations to IATI, but only for a small proportion of its activities. It did not publish pre-project impact appraisals to IATI, although these were sometimes found in another format.
Recommendations
- DFAT should publish to IATI at least quarterly and maintain regular publication to ensure its data remains current and users can track changes to its portfolio.
- DFAT should ensure that up-to-date country strategy documents are consistently published for all relevant countries.
- DFAT should publish more comprehensive activity-level budget information, including project budget documentation and disaggregated budgets for all countries where it operates.
- DFAT should address data quality issues in its conditions information by providing a clear statement where conditions are not attached to activities and improve the consistency of location data across its activities.
- DFAT should publish transactions with valid receivers and ensure that contracts and tenders are consistently disclosed for relevant activities.
- DFAT should expand the coverage of objectives, results, reviews and evaluations across its portfolio, and publish pre-project impact appraisals to IATI where available.
Deep Dive
Component and overall scores are calculated using unrounded indicator scores. Individual indicator scores are rounded to one decimal place and may therefore not sum exactly to the displayed totals.