Implementation Schedule

• Part I — Common Standard — Implementation schedule
  • Introduction
  • The Questionnaire
• Part II — General questions on comprehensiveness, timeliness and public availability of information
  • 1. Coverage and Comprehensiveness
  • 2. Frequency and Timelines
  • 3. Forward-Looking Information
  • 4. Publication
• Part IIIa — Agency Data
• Part IIIb — Activity Data

Part I — Common Standard — Implementation schedule

Introduction

At the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan in 2011, countries and organisations resolved to:

"Implement a common, open standard for electronic publication of timely, comprehensive and forward-looking information on resources provided through development co-operation, taking into account the statistical reporting of the OECD-DAC and the complementary efforts of the International Aid Transparency Initiative and others. This standard must meet the information needs of developing countries and non-state actors, consistent with national requirements. We will agree on this standard and publish our respective schedules to implement it by December 2012, with the aim of implementing it fully by December 2015."

In early 2012, the OECD DAC Working Party on Development Finance Statistics (WP-STAT) and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) formulated the framework for a common standard. It sets out good practice in reporting and publishing data. The proposal was endorsed by the Working Party for Aid Effectiveness (WP-EFF) in June 2012 (DCD/DAC/EFF(2012)9/REV) (PDF, 23 pages, 724 Ko).

The common standard combines three complementary systems and processes: the DAC's Creditor Reporting System (CRS) and the Forward Spending Survey (FSS) — two reporting instruments of the OECD — plus the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), a self-publishing system with notifications to a registry. It is designed to make aid information more transparent along four dimensions:

1. Greater availability of historical, current and future information on aid flows;
2. More detailed information on aid projects and programmes (improved comprehensiveness);
3. Broader coverage and participation (beyond ODA, and beyond traditional donors); and
4. Improved timeliness and more frequent updates of development financing information.

The Questionnaire

This implementation schedule is intended for countries and organisations to specify what information they already report and publish and to present a timetable, based on their specific situation, of the feasibility of publishing more information; that is, when, what, where and how organisations will be publish more data. Progress will be monitored using an indicator (yet to be defined) related to the implementation of the common standard that will draw on these implementation schedules.

At the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan in 2011, countries and organisations committed to publishing a first implementation schedule by 31 December 2012. The schedules can be updated as implementation proceeds and planned dates become firmer.

The Implementation Schedule is composed of four parts:

• I. Introduction and instructions
• II. General questionnaire on comprehensiveness, timeliness and public availability of information. This part is to be completed by each country or organisation (Part II — General questions on comprehensiveness, timeliness and public availability of information)
• III. Detailed questionnaire on the availability of information at agency and activity level. This part, divided into two subparts, is to be completed by each publishing agency.
  • IIIa. Agency Data — Questions referring to the current and planned availability of published information at agency level (Part IIIa — Agency Data).
  • IIIb. Activity Data — Questions referring to the availability of information at activity level. This is a general assessment of the agency's ability to provide more detailed information on its activities (Part IIIb — Activity Data).
• IV. A list of codes used by DAC systems and IATI and provided here for reference to help in completing Part IIIb

Part III is to be completed by each agency within a country that will publish data to the common standard. Thus there can be several Part III schedules for one country.

Each tab is made up of a table consisting of five columns (Information Area, Definition, Status, Publication date and a Publication notes field where the agency can fill out additional relevant information, e.g. thresholds, exclusions or definitions specific to the publishing agency):

1) Information Area — this column identifies each information item requested to be published.

2) Definition — this column contains a question on the availability of information in your system to publish based on a short definition on the specific information item taken from CRS/FSS/IATI guidance. It reflects the definitions which were approved by the DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness in June 2012.

3) Status — this column requests agencies to indicate, using a drop-down menu, the extent to which they are able to publish the information item. These are based on the following key:

Status	Description
Fully compliant	Publishing in full compliance with the Standard
Partially compliant	Publishing some data required by the Standard
Future publication	Data will be published at a future date
Not publishing now	Cannot commit to a date for publication
Not applicable	Not relevant to the agency

For anything less than full compliance, the agency is invited to provide further information in the publication notes. This can include:

• dates for full compliance if partial compliance is expected initially
• information on future publication of data items — e.g. potential dates or what it is dependent upon (e.g. new management systems)
• under what conditions data items under consideration could be published (e.g. implementing geo-coding or collecting of results data)
• why publishing this information is not applicable (e.g. not relevant to the agency, not part of the agency's business model, etc.)

4) Publication date — identifies when the agency did, or in future can, start publishing data for this information area. The date should appear in mmm-yy format (e.g. Jan-12). If any additional information needs to be provided about the date, it should be added in the 'Publication notes'. (this expands on the summary in Part II.1F of what improvements will be made and by when to indicate the date each individual item will be published).

5) Publication notes — a free text field where the agency can provide additional information, such as thresholds or exclusions specific to this information item, where internal definitions of a field may differ slightly (or significantly) from the common standard definitions, and any other relevant information not covered in the preceding columns or requiring further clarification.

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Part II — General questions on comprehensiveness, timeliness and public availability of information

Country or Organisation Name: Canadian International Development Agency
Date: December 2012

1. Coverage and Comprehensiveness

A. To which system(s) do you currently report/publish:

• CRS
• FSS
• IATI

B. What is the coverage of your current reporting in terms of financial flows and what levels of aggregation do the reported data represent?

	CRS					IATI
Flows covered / aggregation level (PDF, 75 pages, 640 Ko) Footnote 1	ODA	Official Export Credits	Other OOF	PRIV	NGO	ODA	Official Export Credits	Other OOF	PRIV	NGO
Activity-level	x		x			x	N/A	x	N/A	N/A
Semi-aggregate (by recipient country and sector/component)	x	x	x			x	N/A	x	N/A	N/A
Aggregate (by recipient country only)	x	x	x	x	x	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

C. i) What, if any, thresholds do you apply for aggregating CRS data?

No threshold

ii) What, if any, is the threshold on the value of activities below which you do not publish to IATI?

No threshold

iii) What, if any, rules do you apply to exclude information from publishing to IATI (e.g. based on national regulations)?

In accordance with Canadian legislation, information may not be published if it poses risks of injury to the national interest (e.g. Cabinet confidence and foreign relations) and/or to individuals (e.g. commercial confidentiality, security). This may affect whole projects or documents, or only parts of them.

D. i. If you publish through IATI, which agencies do the published data currently cover?

Name(s) of agencies	Agency coverage	if bilateral donor: % of gross ODA
Canadian International Development Agency	Partial	66% (of Canadian ODA)

ii. In future, which agencies will your published data cover?

Name(s) of agencies	By when?	if bilateral donor: % of gross ODA
Canadian International Development Agency	Oct. 2012	66% (CIDA's share of Canadian gross ODA)

iii. In future, which agencies will your published data not cover?

Name(s) of agencies	if bilateral donor: % of gross ODA
Department of Finance Canada	14%
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade	6%
International Development and Research Center	3%
Others (including e.g. provinces, imputed refugee and student costs)	11%

iv. Please provide additional information related to current/future coverage of publishing (if necessary)

CIDA's first Activity File contains information on projects that were operational in the Project Browser on September 30, 2012. The intention is to achieve complete coverage of the operational, terminating and closed projects in the CIDA's Project Browser in January 2013. The quarterly data reported through the IATI files represent the best available information at the time of the update, whereas the annual CRS data is systematically vetted for quality assurance and represents official OECD statistics, and published according to the deadlines in the DAC Directives.

E. What improvements do you plan to the coverage (types of flows) and comprehensiveness (level of detail) of your data by 2015?

Flows covered	Improvements	By when?
ODA	More comprehensive reporting of Export Credit in CRS++ format	June 2013
OOF	More comprehensive reporting of Export Credit in CRS++ format	June 2013
PRIV	More comprehensive reporting of Private flows in CRS++ format (Statistics Canada)	June 2013
NGO

2. Frequency and Timelines

A. Frequency: At what intervals do you currently report to the CRS / publish through IATI?

	Monthly	Quarterly	Annually	Other (specify)
CRS			x
IATI		x

B. Frequency: At what intervals would you be able to report to the CRS / publish through a publicly available website?

	Monthly	Quarterly	Annually	Other (specify)
CRS		x	x
IATI		x

C. Timeliness: How soon after data are captured and available internally can you publish them? (Please give the soonest any data are available to publish, even if they cover only part of your aid e.g. country project data.)

One month	One quarter	One year	Other (specify)
x

D. What improvements do you plan to the frequency and timeliness of your data and by when?

Flows covered	Improvements	By when?
ODA	CIDA's IATI data will be published on a quarterly basis (and convertible to CRS++ format)	Oct. 2012
OOF	Same as above	Oct. 2012
PRIV
NGO

3. Forward-Looking Information

A. i) For how many years ahead do you provide information (i.e. what is the current practice)? Please indicate for each level of aggregation how many years into the future your outlook reaches.

Level of aggregation		Forward Spending Survey (FSS)	IATI
Activity-level	committed / ongoing projects	3 years
	also including planned / not yet committed projects
	also including remaining country budget envelopes	3 years
Semi-aggregate (by recipient country and sector/component)		3 years
Aggregate envelopes (by recipient country)		3 years

ii) For how many years ahead can you legally provide information?

There are no legal impediments given that the figures are indicative and that they do not constitute a legally binding commitment on the part of the donor. However, given that departements' budgets are allocated on a 3-year cycle, CIDA does not expect to go beyond this planning horizon in the near future.

iii) Please provide additional information related to forward-looking information, including if you use a fixed (e.g. 3-year) or rolling (extended by one year each year) planning framework.

CIDA uses a 3-year rolling fiscal planning framework. Funds are allocated to the department on a 3-year cycle and country programs review program estimates based on approvals throughout the year. There is always some uncertainty surrounding country-level budgets.

B. If the above information relates to the DAC Forward Spending Survey (FSS), do you permit the publication of this information?

No

If no, why not?

Planning information is not released in order to maintain ministerial discretion.

C. What improvements are you planning to provide more forward-looking information, and by when?

Flows covered	Improvements	By when?
ODA	Planned spending/budget for approved projects on a rolling 3-year basis	Apr. 2013
OOF	Same as above
PRIV
NGO

4. Publication

A. What information on your development co-operation resources do you currently publish/plan to publish on your website?

Currently		Planned		By when
x	Project Database		Project Database
x	Information and Reports		Information and Reports
x	Government of Canada's international development assistance commitments, tracking progress by fiscal year.		Other (describe)
x	Country maps with project location

B. What formats/mechanisms do you currently use/plan to use for publishing data on your website?

Currently		Planned		By when
x	XML format for IATI registry		XML format for IATI registry
x	Table(s)/ online tool(s)		Table(s)/ online tool(s)
	Only through OECD website/online databases		Only through OECD website/online databases
	Other (please name)		Other (please name)

C. Under which license do/will you publish your data ^{Footnote 2}

Attribution

Part IIIa — Agency data

Organisation or Agency Name: Canadian International Development Agency
Date: 2012-12-01
CRS donor/agency code or Organisation IATI Identifier: CRS = 301-1 / IATI = CA-1

This tab refers to the current and planned availability of published information at agency level.

Information Item	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Annual forward planning budget data for agency	Does your agency publish its total development budget for each of the next three years (or most detailed available) on a rolling basis. For donor agencies, this will cover information as submitted to parliament; for foundations or multilaterals as submitted to their respective boards.	Fully compliant	Oct. 2012
Annual forward planning budget for funded institutions	Does your agency publish a budget for each of the next three years (or most detailed available) on a rolling basis for each institution (i.e. multilateral organisations, INGOs, foundations and others) that receives core funding from the donor.	Future publication	Apr. 2013	This field will contain the sum of approved commitments to key organisations.
Annual forward planning budget data for countries	Does your agency publish the budget for assistance to each recipient for each of the next three to five years (or most detailed available) on a rolling basis (Please provide if you publish this information according to recipient countries fiscal year).	Future publication	Apr. 2013	This field will contain the sum of approved commitments to key partner countries.
Organisation documents	Does your organisation publish documents that are related to the work-programme of your organisation	Fully compliant	Oct. 2012

Part IIIb — Activity Data

Organisation or Agency Name: Canadian International Development Agency
Date: December 2012
CRS donor/agency code or Organisation IATI Identifier: CRS = 301-1 / IATI = CA-1

This tab refers to the availability of information at activity level.

Information Item	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Reporting Organisation	Does your system allow publication of the name and unique identifier of the organisation publishing the information?	Fully compliant
Standard activity identifier	Does your system allow publication of a globally unique identifier for your activities? This should be in the form of the CRS ID or the IATI Organisation Identifier (for the reporting organisation) concatenated to that organisation's activity identifier.	Fully compliant
Other activity identifiers	Does your system allow publication of other activity identifiers, which can be used to identify an activity for multiple organisations? This can for instance be a donor's own project number.	Future publication	Dec-14	Coverage expected to be limited initially but will expand over time as more donors and partners publish data in accordance with the standard.

Basic Activity Information	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Activity Title	Does your system allow publication of a title of your aid activities (preferably official name used in project documents)?	Fully compliant		Currently published in French and English. Publication in other recipients' languages to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Activity Title (in recipient's language)		Partially compliant
Activity Description	Does your system allow publication of long descriptions summarising the specific purpose or objective of your activities?	Fully compliant		Currently published in French and English. Publication in other recipients' languages to be assessed in on a case-by-case basis.
Activity Description (in recipient's language)		Partially compliant
Activity Status	Does your system allow publication of the current stage of the aid activity at the time the information is published/updated? The stages are based on an activity lifecycle, e.g. pipeline, implementation, completion etc.	Partially compliant		Implementation stage published as of Oct 2012, completion and post-completion to be published as of Jan 2013.
Activity Dates (Start Date)	Does your system allow publication of expected/planned/actual start dates of your activities? Please specify in publication notes field if it is expected/planned start date for the project or actual start date (i.e. the date the physical progress of the project begins). Note that CRS only includes expected/planned start dates.	Fully compliant		Actual start dates are published. They correspond to the date the project becomes operational (implementation phase in IATI standard).
Activity Dates (End Date)	Does your system allow publication of expected/planned/actual completion dates of your activities? Please specify in publication notes field if it is expected/planned completion date for the project or actual completion date (i.e. the date the physical project ends). Note that the CRS only includes expected/planned completion dates.	Fully compliant		The planned end date corresponds to the expected end of activities. It is replaced by the actual end date when the project reaches the completion stage (or terminating in CIDA's terms).
Activity Contacts	Does your system allow publication of contact details for your activities? This can either be a generic contact or specific individual providing there are no privacy concerns and there is an automatic update when individual changes job.	Fully compliant		Contact information is provided for CIDA's Public Inquiries Unit.
Participating Organisation (Funding)	Does your system allow publication of the identity and role of each organisation in activities (including the reporting organisation)?	Fully compliant		Currently only publish the main implementing agency. If there are multiple partners executing the project, they are usually listed in the description. Changes to the Agency's systems are envisioned to systematically capture more information on other implementating partners. "Accountable organisation" is not captured in CIDA systems and is expected to be removed from the standard.
Participating Organisation (Extending)		Fully compliant
Participating Organisation (Implementing)		Partially compliant
Participating Organisation (Accountable)		Not applicable

Geopolitical Information	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Recipient Country	Does your system allow publication of the country(ies) for whose benefit aid flows are provided (if applicable)?	Fully compliant
Recipient Region	Does your system allow publication of supra-national areas for whose benefit aid flows are provided (if applicable)? This includes geographical or administrative regions grouping various countries (e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa) or 'global' for activities benefiting substantially all developing countries.	Fully compliant		Given that the IATI standard has two separate tables to code country and region information, CIDA only reports on this field for projects that cannot be reasonably attributed to specific countries.
Sub-national Geographic Location	Does your system allow publication of sub-national geographical identification of the target locations of your activities? These can be described by coordinates, administrative areas or a textual description. Note that the CRS allows for a textual description, while publication through IATI builds upon the UCDP/AidData geocoding methodology.	Future publication		CIDA will determine a publication date once the standard has been agreed. In the meantime CIDA publishes information on geo-location on country maps on its website.

Classifications	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Sector (DAC CRS)	Does your system allow publication of the specific sector(s) of the recipient's economic or social development that the transfer intends to foster, known as "purpose codes" in the CRS.	Fully compliant
Sector (Agency specific)	Does your system allow publication of agency-specific sector codes for the recipient's economic or social development that the transfer intends to foster.	Not applicable
Policy Markers	Does your system allow publication of indicators tracking key policy issues, notably the CRS policy markers? This can be also used for donor specific thematic classifications.	Fully compliant		CIDA uses the IATI codes for DAC policy markers. CIDA's own policy markers will published as text once technical issues around the publication of bilingual text in this field have been resolved.
Collaboration Type	Does your system allow publication of identifiers to show the type of collaboration? For official donors, it would show if activities are bilateral; earmarked multilateral; core multilateral; core contributions to NGOs; core contributions to PPPs; or multilateral outflow. Other types may apply to foundations and NGOs.	Future publication	Oct-13	Currently reported in CRS reporting. To be published in IATI files as of October 2013.
Default Flow Type	Does your system allow publication of identifiers to show the classification of the flow? For official donors this means if activities are Official Development Assistance (ODA), or Other Official Flows (OOF) [non-concessional but developmental, i.e. excluding export credits]. Other types can be specified for other donors.	Future publication	Jan-14	Currently reported in CRS reporting. To be published in IATI files as of January 2014.
Default Finance Type	Does your system allow publication of identifiers to show the financing mechanism of the aid activity (e.g. grant, loan, capital subscription, export credit, debt relief, equity)? Other types can be specified for other donors.	Future publication	Jan-14	Currently reported in CRS reporting. To be published in IATI files as of January 2014.
Default Aid Type	Does your system allow publication of identifiers to show the type of assistance provided. For official donors broad categories are budget support, pooled funds, project-type interventions, experts, scholarships, debt relief, administrative costs)? Other types can be specified for other donors.	Future publication	Oct-13	Currently reported in CRS reporting. To be published in IATI files as of October 2013.
Default Tied Aid Status	Does your system allow publication of amounts by degree of restriction on where procurement of goods or services can take place, classified as untied (open procurement), partially tied (donor and developing countries) and tied (donor or group not including most developing countries).	Future publication		Currently reported in CRS reporting. To be published in IATI files once discrepancies between the CRS and IATI standards have been resolved.

Financial	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Activity Budget	Does your system allow publication of planned budgets (by quarter or annual) for the lifetime of your activities?	Future publication	Dec-14	Project budgets will be published per Canadian fiscal year. The value indicated in Canadian dollars will correspond to the maximum amount approved by CIDA for the project. Plans are reported with the caveats that these are planning figures and that funds committed are subject to Parliamentary approval of Canada's annual budget. The amounts listed in the IATI Activity File and in the CRS data for any given year will usually be different.
Planned Disbursements	Does your system allow publication of planned disbursements and expenditures for your activities? Note that the FSS requests this information by calendar year while IATI recommends this to be specified by the financial year of the recipient country.	Future publication	Dec-14	Planned disbursements will be published per Canadian fiscal year, on a three-year rolling basis. Plans are reported with the caveats that these are planning figures and that funds committed are subject to Parliamentary approval of Canada's annual budget.
Economic Classification (Capital / Recurrent)	Format still to be finalised by IATI Steering Committee	Not applicable
Recipient's Administrative / Functional budget classification	Format still to be finalised by IATI Steering Committee	Not applicable

Financial Transaction	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Financial transaction (Commitment)	Does your system allow publication of commitments? A commitment is a firm written obligation by the donor to provide resources of a specified amount under specified financial terms and conditions and for specified purposes for the benefit of the recipient.	Future publication	Jan-13	Currently reported in CRS as per the DAC directives. Will be added to the IATI files.
Financial transaction (Disbursement & Expenditure)	Does your system allow publication of disbursements and/or expenditures? A disbursement is the amount placed at the disposal of a recipient country or agency (in the case of internal development-related expenditures, the outlay of funds). An expenditure is the outlay by the implementing agency on goods and services. Please specify in the publication notes if you can publish disbursements and expenditures separately or only publish these jointly.	Future publication	Dec-14	CIDA will publish disbursements but not expenditures (these tend to represent a very small share of the overall project budget and concern such things as monitoring and evaluation services).
Financial transaction (Reimbursement)	Does your system allow publication of reimbursements? Reimbursements are disbursements that repay funds already spent by the recipient, as agreed in the terms of the loan or grant.	Not applicable
Financial transaction (Incoming Funds)	Does your system allow publication of incoming funds? These are funds received from an external funding source (e.g. a donor).	Future publication	Dec-14	While these are not common in CIDA's business model, they will be reported where relevant.
Financial transaction (Loan repayment / interest repayment)	Does your system allow publication of loan repayments? Loan repayments are the actual amounts of principal (amortisation) repaid, including any arrears; Interest Repayments are the actual amount of interest repaid.	Not applicable		CIDA no longer provides loans to partner countries. Its portfolio of past loans does not contain the required details to publish these transactions in accordance to the standard. However, they are reported in CRS reporting.

Related Documents and Links	Detailed information / Definitions	Status	Publication date	Publication notes, including any field level thresholds or exclusions and definitions specific to publishing organisation
Activity Documents	Does your system allow publication of published documents that are related to your activities?	Future publication	Dec-14	Summaries of project evaluations will be published. Publication of whole documents would entail prohibitive translation costs for the Agency.
Activity Website	Do you have websites with more information about individual activities?	Future publication	Dec-14	Websites will be published if/when the information is provided by implementing partners.
Related Activity	Does your system allow publication of links to other activities related to your activities; for example for multi-funded projects?	Future publication	Dec-14	CIDA will report projects related to each other (siblings). Clarifications are required on the multi-funded type (ie how it differs from the "Other Activity Identifier" field.
Performance
Conditions attached Y/N	Does your system allow publication of whether there are any special conditions attached to your individual activities (yes/no), and if so, the exact details of the conditions (optional)?	Fully compliant		Types of condition will be published once a Fiduciary Type has been created. The text of performance conditions will be published.
Text of Conditions		Future publication	Jan-14
Results data	Does your system allow publication of generic frameworks for the reporting of indicator-based targets and outcomes. Please note that there are no restriction on the choice of indicators, measures or baselines.	Partially compliant		Summary information is provided.