Final agreement reached on IATI standard

  • March 14, 2011

A major step forward in international aid transparency was taken at the February IATI Steering Committee in Paris. Signatories and Steering Committee members agreed the final items to be included in the International Aid Transparency Standard.

Part one of the IATI Standard, agreed last July, provided for publication of more detailed and timely aid information – two key commitments made in the Accra Agenda for Action. Last month’s meeting saw important new items added to the IATI standard including:

  • Publication of key documents, in addition to aid data;
  • Publication  of conditions and, where available, results of aid expenditure;
  • Publication of forward looking activity-level (i.e. individual projects and programmes) budgets and forecasts;
  • Proposals to improve the alignment of aid to partner country budget classifications.

Adding these elements to the Standard will support IATI signatories in meeting key Accra commitments, many of which were identified as priorities during IATI partner country consultations. Publication of this information will help developing countries to manage aid resources much more effectively and ultimately help them link aid much more closely to their own budgetary planning process.

Full details of final IATI standard are available on iatistandard.org

This will be a ‘living’ standard, updated from time to time based on experience. But now that IATI’s work in defining the Standard is nearing completion, the focus of attention will turn to implementation.

DFID became the first donor to publish its aid information to the IATI standard in February, and others are expected to follow shortly. Remaining signatories have until the end of March to submit their implementation schedules – an update on these can be found here.