Help and FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

1. What is the Project Browser?
2. What does it contain?
3. How do I use it?
4. What do "maximum contribution", "status", etc. mean?
5. How to keep French accents when opening a CSV project data set in Excel?

The symbol * appears beside project profiles published or modified in the Project Browser over the last two weeks.

Currently (May 2013), the Project Browser contains the profiles of over 2,800 projects funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Each profile includes a short description and basic, up-to-date project information. Projects are listed by country, partner, sector, status, and number, and a keyword search tool allows for advanced searches.

Each profile contains the project title; reference number; CIDA’s maximum contribution in Canadian dollars; names of the organisation responsible for executing the project; status; start and end date; name of the country or countries where the project is executed and the sector(s) concerned. This is followed by a brief project description.

If available, some projects show additional information such as:

• links to executing agencies’ or partner’s websites,
• links to proactive disclosure reports for contracts over $10,000,
• links to proactive disclosure reports for grants and contributions over $25,000, other project related links.

You may choose one of four options:

1. Explore the Browser’s content by using pre-established lists.
   The general lists include all the published projects, whereas the specific lists include those pertaining to a particular theme.
   Just click on one of the choices (country, partner, sector, status, number) available in the left-side menu as well as on the main page. The corresponding list will be displayed. Click on the subject that interests you to view the corresponding project list. You may then click a project title to access its profile.
2. Use the basic search function.
   Just select one or more countries from the drop-down list provided, and/or type in one or more keywords of your choice. If any project profiles contain these keywords, a list of projects will be displayed.
3. Use the advanced search function.
   This function gives users the drop-down list of countries and CIDA sectors and priorities. Each CIDA project is coded by sector. Using the advanced search function, you can find projects based on the codes that CIDA project officers have assigned. You can also select one or more partners or add keywords to refine your search. As with any search system, the more specific the query, the fewer projects are displayed. In other words, the more search criteria you select, the shorter the project list you obtain.
4. Download project information through CIDA’s Open Data website.
   Users can download research-friendly data sets in csv or xml format through the Increasing Transparency and Accountability Through Open Data website. These data sets contain information of projects that are published in the Project Browser. There are three ways of downloading project open data: download a full data set, download a filtered data set, or download information on individual project profiles. For more information on project open data, please see CIDA’s Project Browser Data Set page.

4. Fields and definitions

Project number — The first seven digits indicate a project, with the last three digits indicating a sub-project number. These CIDA-assigned project numbers also appear in the data sent to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to report on disbursements.

Date modified — This date stamp indicates the day on which the project profile was published or modified. Modifications may include substantive changes to the data, such as status or budget updates, or cosmetic changes, such as correction of grammar errors in text fields.

Title — The project title as it appears in the Project Browser may not be exactly the same as it appeared in announcements or in the Proactive Disclosure reports. In the case of multi-donor projects, the title represents CIDA's contribution only and is often different from the title used by all donors in the recipient country.

Description — The project description is for communications purposes. It usually describes the ultimate outcome, intermediate outcomes, and activities in plain language. If the project is part of a larger initiative, that initiative is usually described as well. Sometimes the description lists multiple partners; CIDA's information systems allow only one to be coded in the system.

Expected Results — The information summarized here represents results that are expected to be achieved by the end of the project (the primary intermediate expected outcomes and immediate expected outcomes). This is a new field, and information will only be available for projects approved after October 15, 2011.

Progress and Results Achieved — The information summarized here represents highlights of the project’s accomplishments, not an exhaustive report. Unless otherwise stated, the results are cumulative and based on the most current reports available as of the date indicated; and results are reported for the project as a whole, not just the CIDA contribution.
It is normal for many development projects not to have results to report within the first two years of activities.
Because this field is a new feature, most older projects (i.e. already finished in previous years and the files now closed) will not show results achieved on the web at this time.

Status — CIDA's projects progress through a life cycle of tentative, planning, operational, terminating, and closed. CIDA only publishes project data after the project has been approved and is in operational status. Projects are usually moved into terminating status once activities have been completed and are changed to closed status once the final report has been accepted. Profiles are normally removed from the Project Browser after they have been posted in closed status for one year. Occasionally they are removed while the project is in terminating status if there has been a prolonged administrative delay in closing the project.

Start - End — The years indicated generally represent the project's official year of approval and its estimated year of completion (acceptance of the final report) respectively. These dates usually differ by several months from the beginning and end of activities on the ground.

Country — This field indicates where the project is carried out. The location may be a country, territory, or region. A project may be carried out in more than one location. If so, the project profile indicates an estimated percentage of project activities in each location. CIDA's country pages contain more information on the Agency's activities in each country. Visit Regions and Countries to view these pages.

Executing Agency - Partner — The executing agency-partner can be a private firm, a non-governmental organization, an educational institution, an association, an institute, a government department, or any other individual or organization selected by CIDA to implement the project or one of its components. "Information not available" may appear in the Executing agency-partner field when, for example, a project is operational but does not yet have an official executing agency.

For some executing agencies or partners, a link to its website is available from the project profile. In some cases however, the agency’s or partner’s website might be available in English or French only.

On the “Advanced Search” page, individual partner names may appear more than once in the drop-down list. This is due to errors made in the past in assigning more than one code to the same partner. Although these errors have generally been corrected in CIDA's systems, some of the older projects that used duplicate codes are still published in the Project Browser, accounting for the duplication of the names in the list.

Please note that only one executing agency-partner can be entered in this field in CIDA's information systems; if there are multiple partners in the project, they are usually listed in the description. Consequently, if you are using the executing agency-partner filter to generate a data set, the set will only contain those projects where the vendor chosen is the primary partner entered in this field.

Sectors of focus — CIDA-funded projects are categorized under eight broad sector headings: democratic governance, improving health, private sector development, strengthening basic education, environment, emergency assistance, peace and security, and other.

Sectors — The sector labels and codes used are tertiary-level DAC sector codes. CIDA's sector coding table for projects is based on the OECD sector code table, allowing all donors to compare and coordinate their projects.

Maximum CIDA Contribution — The value indicated in Canadian dollars corresponds to the maximum amount approved by CIDA for the project. When the project moves to closed status, the final amount of the contribution is posted. This value could be less than the maximum amount initially approved.

    Note 1: The amount indicated does not automatically correspond to the amount in the contractual agreement with the organization responsible for executing the project because multiple agreements may have been signed for a single project or the amount approved may include monitoring and evaluation components. Also, CIDA's contribution may represent only a portion of the project's total value, especially if other donors, the recipient country, or the Canadian partner invest equity in the project.

    Note 2: The amounts listed in the Project Browser data and in the DAC-OECD data for any given year will usually be different. The Project Browser contribution amount reflects a planned, or partially disbursed, multi-year budget in Canadian dollars, as currently entered in CIDA's information systems, whereas the DAC-OECD contribution amount is in US dollars per calendar year, for past years, and includes contributions from other Canadian sources, not just CIDA.

    Note 3: The amounts listed in the Project Browser may not always match amounts announced. In some cases, the Project Browser budget data may appear to indicate a lesser amount than that announced because the project has been split into sub-projects, the profiles of which have yet to be published. In other cases, the Project Browser data may appear to indicate an amount greater than that announced because the announcement refers only to new funding added to an existing project or because administrative/evaluation funds have not been included in the announced amount.

Contracts, Grants and Contributions — The addition of this information to projects is a work in progress. This section displays links to related entries in proactive disclosure reports for contracts over $10,000 (including contract amendments), and grants and contributions over $25,000.

  

Opening a csv file in Microsoft Excel may convert French accents into special characters. To conserve the accents follow these steps:

1. Chose the “Save” option while downloading the data set from the Project Open Data website and save the file on your local drive.
2. Open Microsoft Excel and create a new workbook.
3. From the “Data” menu, select “Get External Data”, then “Import Data”.
4. In the “Select Data Source” window, find your csv file in the location where you previously saved it, select it, and click on “Open”.
5. In the “Text Import Wizard - Step 1 of 3” window, select the following options:
   (a) original data type: "Delimited",
   (b) file origin: “65001 : Unicode (UTF-8)”, and
   (c) click “Next”.
6. In the “Text Import Wizard - Step 2 of 3” window, select “Comma” as a delimiter and click on “Next”.
7. In the “Text Import Wizard - Step 3 of 3” window, click on “Finish”.
8. From the “Import Data” window, click on “Ok”.

You can now manipulate the csv file as needed. The French accents should appear properly.