Methodology

The information contained in the Budget4 Change website can be split into two broad categories:

• Quantitative information on the aid activities of donors, laid out in a number of comparable charts and tables
• Detailed information (both quantitative and discursive) on the internal budgets  of individual donors

Quantitative data

The data for the charts and tables shown for all donors are taken from the OECD’s International Development Statistics online databases.

The data for multilateral ODA, which is included in the totals on the home page, and shown in the bar charts of total ODA on the individual donor pages, are taken from table DAC1 of the OECD.STAT datasets. 

The data for the bilateral component of the data on the home page, together with the data for the breakdown of ODA by donor government department or agency, shown on the individual donor pages, are taken from the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database.  Additional information on the full names of government departments or agencies have been obtained from a number of sources including donor agency websites, interviews with donor representatives and DAC peer review documentation.  The data in the breakdown of ODA by government department or agency shows only gross bilateral ODA as no breakdown by agency is available for multilateral ODA in the DAC statistical tables.

The data on ODA by sector, income group, region and recipient are also taken from the CRS and show only gross bilateral ODA.  The breakdown by sector has been prepared by grouping the broad sector codes, held against each record on the CRS (with the exception of imputed student costs), into a number of logical categories as shown in the following table:

All figures shown are ODA disbursements in US$.  The data are shown in current prices to facilitate comparison with other data obtained from donor agencies which may appear in the detailed donor profiles.

Detailed information on individual donors

The information under the sections of the donor pages entitled ‘Country Overview’, ‘Timeline’, ‘Key Documents & Links’ and ‘Departmental Breakdown’ have been obtained from the following sources:

• Face-to-face interviews with representatives of donor government ministries and agencies;
• Documentation and web-based information published by donor government ministries and agencies;
• Documentation from OECD DAC peer reviews of donors.

The information obtained from donors has been reconciled with the CRS data.  This can be a painstaking and lengthy process as information from different donor agencies (even within the same donor) is published in a wide variety of formats, making direct comparisons very difficult.  In addition to this many smaller (and some larger) donor agencies are grouped together under a ‘miscellaneous agency’ category when the donor reports to the CRS.  Thus the analysis of donor data has involved line-by-line comparison of departmental budgets, annual reports and CRS data to ensure the accuracy of the information in the donor profiles.  This information has been used to identify the relationship between each agency budget and ODA which, in turn, is used to assess the likely impact of government budget announcements on future ODA levels.

Detailed profiles have been prepared for larger DAC donors, and work continues to build up profiles of the remainder.  Where such profiles have been completed, links to the source documents used may be found under the Key Documents & Links’ section of the donor profiles.

The information obtained has been used to identify the relationship between each agency budget and ODA which, in turn, is used to assess the likely impact of government budget announcements on future ODA levels. This has involved:

• Mapping historical patterns of sources of ODA from budget lines of each government department (where the challenges of different data sources comes into play);
• Identifying any specific patterns and methodologies donors apply in their translation of specific budget lines into ODA;
• Using this intelligence to make projections of what budget announcements mean for ODA.

We welcome any feedback to improve the information on this site, or contact from other organisations interested in using government budgets to monitor ODA levels.  With country coverage expanding, Budget4Change is always seeking collaboration with domestic civil society organisations and others who have expertise and interest in this field. Please click here and contact us.