CAFOD open up their data with IATI

The Catholic Overseas Development Agency (CAFOD) have become the latest NGO to publish their data to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard.

CAFOD, the official Catholic aid agency for England and Wales, works to reduce global poverty. They have over 500 partners in more than 40 countries worldwide.

CAFOD joins several other large NGOs in publishing their data to IATI, including Oxfam and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, with more to follow in the coming weeks and months.

CAFOD’s decision to publish this data demonstrates their strong commitment to increased transparency. By publishing their aid information to IATI’s common, open standard, CAFOD are ensuring that their data can be used, compared and re-purposed to meet many different needs.

The range of information published to IATI by CAFOD and other donors will grow over time, increasing its usefulness to stakeholders in partner countries.

To view the data, visit the IATI registry. As more information is released we expect to see a number of graphs and charts emerging based on this data. There are already some developments underway; the IATI Data Explorer allows you to choose specific sets of aid activities to view in depth. The Guardian Global Development website has an array of visualisations based on donor-released data that’s worth viewing. We will shortly be launching AidView, a new IATI data platform.

These projects, along with a number of others currently being worked on, means that data users will be able to view and play with the data in easy-to-understand visualisations.