Units of Aid

It is important to define exactly what the unit of aid being reported is, as organisations use a range of different definitions or may have different ways of identifying an ‘activity’. Examples of units of aid include: programmes, projects, sub-projects, activities, grants, etc.

Units of aid can also be hierarchical, and an explanation needs to be provided on how the units of aid are split between hierarchy levels. For example, activities at hierarchy level 1 (or the ‘parent’ level) could cover things like programmes, umbrella projects or grant streams. Units of aid at hierarchy level 2 (or ‘child’ level) could include projects or sub-projects. It is also possible for activities to be related on a horizontal basis (‘siblings’). For example, a group of projects sitting under a programme could be classed as sibling activities. Related activities can be identified through providing the related activity identifiers when reporting on each individual activity.

It is also important to differentiate what data will appear at the different levels. For example, activity budgets could be reported at level 1, while transaction level data is reported at level 2. This also helps to avoid double counting, with monetary amounts being reported at the lowest possible hierarchical level (and not repeated or aggregated at higher levels). Lower level activities will inherit data from their parent activity.