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EU Aid Explorer

Glossary of Terms and Concept

For an explanation of the main terms and concepts used in the EU Aid Explorer, see below. For a more detailed Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts concerning Official Development Assistance and an Index of financing for sustainable development terms, please consult the website of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. For detailed information about the IATI Standard see the website of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

Channel

The ”Channel of delivery” data field captures information on the organisations that actually implement aid projects, and is accountable for the funds. Where several levels of implementation are involved, only the first level is reported to the CRS as channel of delivery. By contrast, IATI data includes several related fields for this purpose. Since an activity can be managed by different organisations at different levels, knowing who is responsible for which aspect is key for aid management.

Commitment

The financial commitment for the activity as a whole for the lifetime of the activity.

CRS

The Creditor Reporting System (CRS) on aid activities from members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), multilateral organisations and other donors. The data are part of the official statistical reporting to the OECD. The DAC Secretariat is responsible for data processing, quality control and dissemination. The CRS code list is available here.

See the CRS code list

DAC

OECD Development Assistance Committee

Description

The description of the activity gives information about the aims of the activity, such as why it has been designed and authorised, what purpose has, who will benefit from it and how it fits with the donor's policy goals. N.B. The descriptions appear in the form and language as reported by the Donor.

Disbursement

Individual actual financial payments; the amount placed at the disposal of a recipient country or organisation.

Documents

If a donor has included links to documents or online resources about the activity in the publication to IATI, they will appear in the tab Documents on the project page. It could be tenders, strategies, contracts, reviews and evaluations, a Memorandum of Understanding, activity websites, photos etc.

Donor Category

The donors are divided in three groups in the tool, depending on the data source used: EU institutions, EU Member States and EU Trust Funds. EU Trust Funds are presented separately to avoid double counting.

Donors

The aid providers included in the tool: the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, EU Trust Funds and all 28 EU Member States. N.B. Some donors may not be available in all data sources; please consult the section Data Sources under the page “About” for further details.

End Date

The date when the activity actually ended or was planned to end.

EUR

EUR is the currency code used to represent the euro, the official currency for more than half of the 28 members of the EU. The euro area consists of Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Finland.

Geolocation

Geolocation is the identification of the geographic location (latitude and longitude) of an activity within a country.

GNI

Gross National Income

Gross ODA

Gross official development assistance (ODA) includes monetary transfers (e.g. grants and loans to governments and projects), non-monetary transfers (e.g. food aid, technical cooperation) and support that did not contain any additional transfer of resources (e.g. debt relief).

Gross ODA Disbursements

EU Aid Explorer presents Gross ODA disbursements. In order to obtain the total Gross ODA disbursements for a given Member State donor, the following formula is applied: ODA Gross Disbursements from CRS (Bilateral) + Gross Disbursements for Core Contributions to Multilateral Institutions – EU Member States Gross Disbursements for Core Contributions to EU Institutions. The latter is excluded in order to avoid the double counting between the EU institutions and EU Member States. As a result, the funds which EU Member States contribute to the EU institutions (contributions to EU Annual Budget, European Development Fund and European Investment Bank) are only accounted for once, i.e. within the projects conducted by the EU institutions.

Humanitarian assistance

Humanitarian assistance refers to the financial resources for humanitarian action. It is delivered during and in the aftermath of man-made crises and disasters caused by natural hazards.

IATI

The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) is a global multi-stakeholder initiative to improve the transparency of development and humanitarian resources. At the heart is the IATI Standard, which is a set of rules and guidance for publishing useful development and humanitarian data in a machine-readable format. The IATI code list is available here.

Implementing Partner

The organisation that is principally responsible for delivering the activity, as reported to IATI.

Income Group

The DAC list of ODA Recipients shows developing countries and territories eligible for receiving Official Development Assistance. The List presents countries and territories in groups: the Least Developed Countries, Other Low Income Countries, Lower Middle Income Countries and Territories, and Upper Middle Income Countries and Territories. The list is revised by the DAC every 3 years.

ODA

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Policy Marker

The policy markers indicate to which degree an activity addresses certain cross-sectoral development-policy objectives. Is it a “principal”, “significant” or “not (yet) targeted” objective? The Rio and environment markers concern Environment, Biodiversity, Desertification, Climate change mitigation, and Climate change adaptation. There are also markers for Gender Equality, Participatory Development/Good Governance, Trade Development and Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. Markers give an indication of the policy objectives of the activity. The score “not targeted” means that the activity does not target that policy goal. If the activity has not been marked the field is left empty.

Project / Project Activity

The results show whether activities achieved their intended outputs in accordance with the stated goals or plans. If the donor has published the results of the activity to IATI, they will appear under the results tab on the project page.

Recipient

The country receiving the Official Development Assistance from the EU Donors.

Recipient Group

The recipients are grouped into three categories in the tool to allow for a dedicated drill-down into Developing countries, unspecified (Unallocated), Partner Countries, or Partner Regions.

Sector

The specific area that the activity supports, e.g. education, health, agriculture, infrastructure or governance, equal to the OECD CRS purpose code. When a sector is not (correctly) reported by the donor or cannot be allocated to a particular sector, it is presented as Unallocated.

Sector Category

The grouping of OECD CRS purpose codes one level above the DAC5 code.

Sourcing Logic

Sourcing logic allows users to switch between different data sources. More information about each data source can be found in the tab “About”.

Start Date

The date when the activity started or is planned to start, depending on the information available.

Sustainable Development Goals

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Title

The title is a concise statement that identifies a Project or a Project Activity. It is recommended that the title should be jargon-free and avoid use of text in CAPITALS, where possible.

Transactions

The list of Commitments and Disbursements per date as reported by the donors to IATI. Transactions are presented on the project page.

Trust Fund

Since 2014, four EU trust funds have been established: the EU Trust Fund for Colombia, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing the root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa (EU Trust Fund for Africa), the EU Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis (the ‘Madad’ Trust Fund), and the EU Trust Fund for the Central African Republic (the ‘Bêkou’ Trust Fund). EU Aid Explorer includes data for these Trust Funds as published by DG DEVCO and DG NEAR to IATI. The EU Trust Fund for Africa has an independent transparency website at https://ec.europa.eu/trustfundforafrica/ with richer and fully up-to-date information.

In order to avoid double counting between the budget of the EU donors and the EU Trust Funds (to which the European Commission contributes together with the Member States), the activities of the EU Trust Funds are presented independently. In order to see the activities of the EU Trust Funds, select the Sourcing Logic ‘EU TRUST FUNDS’.

Type of Aid

The type of aid is an OECD classification, which shows the broad category of the activity, e.g. budget support; core contributions and pooled programmes and funds; project-type interventions; other technical assistance; administrative costs etc. Each category is broken down to sub-types.

Type of Finance

The type of finance is an OECD classification, which distinguishes between financial instruments of the activities, e.g. grants or loans.

Unallocated (Recipient)

Unallocated category represents flows that cannot be allocated to a geographical area (country or region). They typically include core funding to multilateral organisations and cases when countries or regions have not been reported correctly (data quality issue). In addition, operational flows that are part of global programmes and cannot be allocated to a country or a region, as well as the administrative expenditure eligible as ODA are also counted as geographically “unallocated”. Aid data is gradually becoming more detailed; thus earlier data in the tool show larger unallocated amounts than data from recent years.

Unallocated (Sector)

Unallocated category represents flows that cannot be allocated to a sector. They typically include core funding to multilateral organisations and cases when sectors have not been reported correctly (data quality issue). Aid data is gradually becoming more detailed; thus earlier data in the tool show larger unallocated amounts than data from recent years.

Year

The year represents a calendar year in which the disbursement (payment) under an activity was made.