AidData: Difference between revisions

AidData
Formation	March 23, 2010
Type	Aid Transparency, Information Technology, Geocoding
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Location	Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, VA, Provo, Utah;
Website	AidData.org

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Revision as of 19:51, 16 June 2011

AidData is a collaborative initiative, think-tank and research institution to provide products and services that promote the dissemination, analysis, and understanding of development finance information. The AidData website provides access to development finance activity records from most official aid donors. Complementing the work of the OECD, whose Creditor Reporting System (CRS) is the official source of statistics for all OECD member countries, the AidData portal provides access to development finance activities from a wide range of donors in an accessible format. In addition to providing access to these data, the AidData program works on other projects that make it easier to access and analyze aid information, such as the World Bank Institute’s Mapping for Results Initiative and the Development Loop application.

History

AidData is a partnership between Brigham Young University (BYU), the College of William and Mary, and Development Gateway. AidData was formed in 2009 through the merger of two existing programs: Project-Level Aid (PLAID) and Accessible Information on Development Activities (AiDA). PLAID, conceived in 2003, was a joint effort between BYU and William and Mary to complement the work of the OECD CRS by creating an extended database of development finance activities for use in the research community. AiDA was established in 2001 by Development Gateway to serve as a registry of aid activities to improve aid transparency and coordination.

Information Tools and Resources

AidData’s online resources include:

The AidData 1.0 Database, a collection of information on individual foreign aid projects financed by governments and aid agencies between 1945 and 2009
AidData TechTools, which enable users to download and use AidData information remotely
The First Tranche, a blog including analysis of development issues
Projects and Publications; list of books, scholarly articles, and blog posts using the AidData database

Aid Information in AidData

According to the AidData website, the AidData web portal “catalogues nearly one million projects that were financed between 1945 and 2009 by 87 different donors.”^[1] Most of the projects come directly from the Creditor Reporting System (CRS), the central database for foreign aid compiled by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC). AidData also includes information on the aid projects of some donors that do not report to the OECD, such as the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, and South Africa. The aid activities are classified according to a scheme that is based on the CRS codebook, but adds individual activity codes under each purpose code headline. The beta version of the AidData portal was launched in March 2010 at a 2010 conference in Oxford, UK.

Geocoding

In collaboration with Uppsala University, AidData developed the UCDP/AidData methodology for geocoding aid activities. The methodology is used to tag development aid activities with geographic coordinates, such that they can be pinpointed to geographic locations and displayed on a map. In partnership with the World Bank^[2], AidData applied this methodology to the Mapping for Results initiative, through which geocoders mapped out more than 16,000 project locations for more than 2,700 active Bank activities across 81 countries, including all IDA recipient countries.^[3]

The UCDP/AidData Geocoding Methdology can be freely downloaded on the Open.AidData website.

AidData Publications

Publications based on AidData resources include:

‘’Greening Aid: Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance.’’ Robert L. Hicks, Bradley C. Parks, J. Timmons Roberts, and Michael J. Tierney. Oxford University Press, 2008.
‘’A Climate of Injustice: North-South Politics and Climate Policy.’’ J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley C. Parks. MIT University Press, 2006.
"Controlling Coalitions: Social Lending at the Multilateral Development Banks." Mona Lyne, Daniel Nielson, and Michael J. Tierney. Review of International Organizations 4 (4), 2009.
"Who Ratifies Environmental Treaties and Why? Institutionalism, Structuralism, and Participation by 192 Nations in 22 Treaties." J. Timmons Roberts, Bradley C. Parks and Alexis A.Vásquez. Global Environmental Politics 4 (3), 2004.

AidData is used as a source in the following publications:

QuODA: an assessment of the quality of Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by 23 donor countries and over 150 aid agencies. QuODA is produced by the Center for Global Development
Publish What You Fund Aid Transparency Assessment: the first global assessment of aid transparency. The assessment compares the transparency of 30 major donors based on their high-level commitment to transparency, transparency to recipient governments, and transparency to civil societies.

References to AidData on the Web

World Bank: “Today is a good day to be a technologist”
The Washington Times: “Subrahamanian: Black hole for foreign aid.”
Devex: “Aid Transparency and Development Finance Conference.”
Huffington Post: “Mapping the World Bank’s Footprint.”
Change.org: “AidData lets you see who’s giving what, where.”
Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report: “New Online Portal Aims to Comprehensively Track Global Aid Flow.”
AidWatch: “New Portal Seeks to Liberate Data.”
Financial Times: “Making aid more transparent”

Other Foreign Aid Databases and Resources

References

^ http://blog.aiddata.org/2010/03/welcome-to-first-tranche.html
^ Kanani, Rahim. "Aleem Walji of the World Bank Institute's Innovation Team on the Future of International Development" Huffington Post. May 5, 2011. [1]
^ Kessler, Sarah. "The World Bank Shows Where $168 Billion Goes With Interactive Map". Mashable. April 20, 2011. [2].

[1] ttp://blog.aiddata.org/2010/03/welcome-to-first-tranche.html

[2] Kanani, Rahim. "Aleem Walji of the World Bank Institute's Innovation Team on the Future of International Development" Huffington Post. May 5, 2011. [1]

[3] Kessler, Sarah. "The World Bank Shows Where $168 Billion Goes With Interactive Map". Mashable. April 20, 2011. [2].

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-'''AidData''' is a collaborative initiative to provide products and services that promote the dissemination, analysis, and understanding of [[Aid|development finance]] information. The [http://www.aiddata.org AidData website] provides access to development finance activity records from most [[aid|official aid]] donors. Complementing the work of the [[OECD]], whose  [http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx Creditor Reporting System (CRS)] is the official source of statistics for all OECD member countries, the AidData portal provides access to development finance activities from a wide range of donors in an accessible format. In addition to providing access to these data, the AidData program works on other projects that make it easier to access and analyze aid information, such as the World Bank Institute’s [http://maps.worldbank.org/about#Partners Mapping for Results Initiative] and the [http://blog.aiddata.org/2011/01/aiddata-enters-aid-mapping-prototype.html Development Loop application].
+'''AidData''' is a collaborative initiative, think-tank and research institution to provide products and services that promote the dissemination, analysis, and understanding of [[Aid|development finance]] information. The [http://www.aiddata.org AidData website] provides access to development finance activity records from most [[aid|official aid]] donors. Complementing the work of the [[OECD]], whose  [http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx Creditor Reporting System (CRS)] is the official source of statistics for all OECD member countries, the AidData portal provides access to development finance activities from a wide range of donors in an accessible format. In addition to providing access to these data, the AidData program works on other projects that make it easier to access and analyze aid information, such as the World Bank Institute’s [http://maps.worldbank.org/about#Partners Mapping for Results Initiative] and the [http://blog.aiddata.org/2011/01/aiddata-enters-aid-mapping-prototype.html Development Loop application].
 ==History==