Aid Transparency

The Government of Canada is committed to increasing transparency and accountability as part of its Aid Effectiveness Agenda. CIDA regularly reports to Canadians on its plans, activities and results throughout the year. CIDA was one of the first donor agencies to offer a project database online when the Project Browser was created in 2004.

CIDA is increasing its efforts to provide more information to Canadians and the world.

In July 2011, as part of the Government of Canada's Open Government initiative, CIDA launched its Open Data portal. This portal provides statistical data and other information on Canada's international assistance in data sets and machine-readable formats. Four data sets were initially made available:

• Project Browser
• Statistical Report on International Assistance — Country spending
• International Development Assistance Commitments
• Canada's Official Development Assistance Statistics — OECD/DAC

In September 2011, Canada announced its intention to join the Open Government Partnership — a new multilateral initiative to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

In November 2011, CIDA joined the International Transparency Initiative (IATI), which aims to make information about aid spending easier to find, use and compare. IATI will help donors publish information in a common format and using common definitions. This will increase the transparency of aid flows.

In December 2011, at the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, CIDA along with other donors and partner countries committed to:

• Make the full range of information on publicly-funded development activities, their financing, terms and conditions and contribution to development results publicly available
• Focus, at the country level, on establishing transparent public financial management and aid information systems and strengthen the capacities of all relevant stakeholders to make better use of this information in decision-making and to promote accountability
• Implement a common, open standard for electronic publication of timely, comprehensive and forward-looking information on resources provided through development co-operation [that will] meet the information needs of developing countries and non-state actors by 2015.

In April 2012, Canada announced its support for the Open Aid Partnership (OAP) which will increase partner countries' capacity to produce and use open data. CIDA will provide $1 million in support to the OAP over the next three years, making CIDA the largest partner to date.

In October 2012, CIDA released its first set of data files compatible with the IATI Standard. In December 2012, CIDA published its IATI Implementation Schedule. This document provides details on which information CIDA plans to publish and when.

As new information related to transparency and accountability is published on CIDA's website, a link will be provided here. As of April 2013, this includes:

• Interactive maps of CIDA-funded projects in 40 countries and two regions through geo-mapping
• Two more data sets on Open Data:
  • Statistical Report on International Assistance — Multilateral spending
  • Historical Project information
• New fields in the Project Browser providing information on expected results and progress and results achieved
• New links in the Project Browser to partner organization websites
• New links between the quarterly proactive disclosure reports and the Project Browser providing more information about financial commitments
• Rolling Five-Year Evaluation Workplan outlining current and upcoming program evaluations to be undertaken by CIDA
• CIDA's risk management approach
• Full country strategies for 16 countries of focus
• IATI Implementation Schedule
• Third quarterly IATI data files