Swedish government expands IATI publishing to development implementing partners

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) is making significant progress in strengthening the transparency and accessibility of Sweden’s development cooperation through the use of the IATI Standard.

In late 2025, Sida introduced a policy requiring organisations receiving Swedish aid to publish data to the IATI Standard. Since the introduction of this policy, there has been a substantial increase in Swedish civil society organisations publishing to IATI, with Swedish organisations accounting for the majority of new publishers in recent months.

This information strengthens transparency across Sweden’s development delivery chains, making it possible to trace aid from government to downstream partners. It gives civil society organisations greater visibility of other actors working in the same sectors and geographies, supporting coordination and reinforcing public accountability.

Sida makes this information publicly available through Openaid.se, Sida’s open aid data platform, where implementing partners across the delivery chain can be accessed and explored. By integrating IATI data, the platform provides a comprehensive and accessible overview of Sweden’s development cooperation. Their recently updated platform enables deeper exploration and analysis, making it possible to follow aid flows further downstream and gain greater visibility of implementation.

Ingrid Rydell, head of the Data, Statistics and Analytics Unit, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), said:

“Requiring our implementing partners to publish to the IATI Standard is about increasing transparency in Sweden’s development cooperation. It increases visibility of local partners and helps in understanding the full delivery chain of Sida's development cooperation. By expanding IATI publishing, we are creating a better overview of who is doing what and where, supporting coordination, learning, and accountability to the public”.

Building on the expansion of Swedish aid data, Sida is investing in capacity-building and practical use of this information. In February 2026, Sida convened a learning session for their staff to deepen understanding of the IATI Standard and explore how published data can be accessed and applied in practice.

The IATI Secretariat was pleased to contribute to the session, providing an overview of the global IATI community, the types of organisational and activity-level information available, and the benefits of IATI publishing for donors and their partners. The session also featured a practical workshop delivered by Publish What You Fund, supporting staff to engage more confidently with open aid data and explore how it can inform analysis and decision-making.

Together, these efforts demonstrate Sida’s growing leadership in embedding transparency across both policy and practice. This momentum at the start of 2026 aligns closely with IATI’s Strategic Plan 2026–2030, which places a strong emphasis on improving data quality, accessibility, meaningful use, and collaboration between members and partners. Sida’s approach illustrates how policy commitments, technical implementation, and capacity-building can work together to advance these shared goals to improve data transparency.