Aid data: Time to get crunching!
A compilation of data sets related to global development…for the geek in all of us.
Stephanie Oum is an intern on Oxfam America’s Aid Effectiveness team.
It’s Global Transparency Week, so we’re sharing a raw list of data sets and indices sorted by a variety of development topics, all for your data-crunching pleasure!
In no way is this list comprehensive—we know that there are hundreds of data sets out there—but these are a good start. Mixed into this list are very specific data sets, like Publish What You Fund’s Aid Transparency Index, to meta-data sets like World Bank indicators, right down to databases on different laws, treaties, and reports. (Do note that inclusion on this list should not be seen as Oxfam’s assessment of data quality.)
Feel free to (and please do!) add any missing data sets that you find useful in the comments section below.
Development and Aid Datasets |
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Datasets & Indices |
Focus |
Description |
| DARA Humanitarian Response Index | Aid Effectiveness | Monitors quality and effectiveness of aid |
| OECD Creditor Reporting System (CRS) | Aid Effectiveness | Development, aggregate official/private flows, geographical data, sector level data, CRS, CPA/FSS, Paris Declaration, African Economic Outlook |
| Paris Declaration Indicators of Progress | Aid Effectiveness | Progress in implementing Paris Indicators |
| World Bank: Aid Effectiveness | Aid Effectiveness | World Bank Indicators on Aid Effectiveness |
| Afghanistan Development Assistance Database | Aid effectiveness, Afghanistan | Aid management and coordination; International documents and policy statements |
| AidData Database | Aid transparency | Information on foreign aid projects financed by governments and aid agencies between 1945 and present |
| AidData Raw | Aid transparency | Collection of donor datasets; new information that is not yet vetted or standardized by AidData’s main database |
| AidFlows | Aid transparency | Visualizes how much development aid is provided and received around the world |
| AidView | Aid transparency | Tablet-computer optimized interface on IATI data |
| Akvo Open Aid Search | Aid transparency | IATI data sorted by publisher, budget, countries, regions and sectors |
| Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) | Aid transparency | Disaster Aid Tracking |
| IATI raw data registry | Aid transparency | IATI data sorted by publisher, budget, countries, regions and sectors |
| International Budget Partnership (IBP) Open Budget Index | Aid transparency | Assigns score to each country on overall commitment to transparency |
| Open Government Dashboard | Aid transparency | Federal spending (all agencies) |
| Publish What You Fund | Aid transparency | Aid Transparency Index |
| Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA) | Aid transparency | Quality of Development Aid rankings |
| ESCAP Data Center (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asian and the Pacific) | Development | Country-level data related to demography, migration, education, health, poverty, gender, employment, economy, government finance, employment, transport, and environment |
| Gapminder | Development | Facts about social, environmental and economic development |
| Inter-American Development Bank | Development | Indicators for Latin America and the Caribbean |
| Millennium Development Goal Indicators | Development | MDGs |
| OECD Statistics | Development | Governance, foreign aid, health, agriculture, development, energy, economy, environment; etc |
| UNDP: Country Profiles | Development | Country Profiles from UNDP |
| UNDP: Explorer | Development | Public Data Explorer |
| UNDP: Human Development Index | Development | International Human Development Indicators |
| World Bank: Development Impact Evaluation Initiative | Development | Effictiveness of development policies |
| World Bank: World Development Indicators | Development | World Development indicators at a national, regional, and global level |
| Financial Tracking Services (FTS) | Foreign Assistance | Global, real-time database which records all reported international humanitarian aid flows. The database is maintained by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). |
| Foreign Assistance Dashboard: Dataview | Foreign Assistance | US Government foreign assistance obligation and expenditure data sorted by country, sector, agency and year |
| Foreign Assistance Dashboard: Department of Defense | Foreign Assistance | Department of Defense aid flows |
| Foreign Assistance Dashboard: Department of Treasury | Foreign Assistance | Department of Treasury aid flows |
| Foreign Assistance Dashboard: Global Climate Change | Foreign Assistance | Appropriations details on adaptation, clean energy, and sustainable landscapes |
| Foreign Assistance Dashboard: Global Health Initiative Dataset | Foreign Assistance | Appropriations details on HIV/AIDS, maternal health, malaria, family planning, TB, Nutrition, Public Health threats, pandemic influenza and vulnerable children. |
| Government Spending Watch | Foreign Assistance | MDG spending on agriculture, education, environment, gender, health, social protection, water and sanitation |
| The Aid Explorer | Foreign Assistance | “Mapping the hyperspace of international aid” |
| The Food Aid Informationa System (FAIS) World Food Programme database | Foreign Assistance | Data on food aid flows |
| The Greenbook | Foreign Assistance | Data on US overseas loans and grants |
| UNDP Projects | Foreign Assistance | Database of all UNDP projects |
| World Bank: Open Financial data | Foreign Assistance | World Bank financial disbursements |
Sector-Specific Datasets |
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Datasets & Indices |
Focus |
Description |
| CountrySTAT | Agriculture | Web-based information technology system for food and agriculture statistics at the national and subnational levels |
| FAOSTAT | Agriculture | Large time-series and cross sectional data relating to hunger, food and agriculture for 245 countries and territories and 35 regional areas, from 1961 to the most recent year |
| Foreign Assistance Dashboard: Feed the Future | Agriculture | President’s global hunger and food security initiative |
| UNODA- UN Register of Conventional Arms | Arms Trade | UN Register of Conventional Arms |
| CIA World Factbook | Civil Society | Governance, economy, geography, communcations, transportation, military and transnational issues for 267 world entities |
| Civicus | Civil Society | Database on civil society by civil society |
| International Center for Nonprofit Law (ICNL) | Civil Society | Database of laws, reports, and other civil society legal resources from countries around the world |
| Correlates of War | Conflict | Datasets on international conflict, militarized international disputes, bilateral trade, and diplomatic exchanges |
| Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers (NISAT) | Conflict | Database on legal and illegal small arms trade |
| Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO): Armed Conflict | Conflict | Database on armed conflict |
| Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO): Armed Conflict | Conflict | Mapping arms data |
| Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO): Conflict | Conflict | Datasets on specific aspects of geography that influence conflict |
| Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) | Conflict | Data on international arms transfers, world military expenditure, the arms and military services industry and multilateral peace operations |
| Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) | Conflict | Datasets on organized violence and peacemaking |
| Transparency International | Corruption | Corruption indices and reports |
| Transparency International: GATEway | Corruption | Corruption measurements |
| GeoHive | Demography | Global Population Statistics |
| OECD (demography) | Demography | Database on immigrants in OECD countries |
| UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (ESA) | Demography | Population division, population estimates and projections |
| United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Population Reference Bureau | Demography | Country profiles for population and reproductive health: policy developments and indicators for use by country officers, policy-makers and researchers. |
| CEPALSTAT (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) | Economy | Economic, sociodemographic, and environmental indicators for LAC region. |
| Enterprise Surveys | Economy | International Finance Corporation (IFC) database that offers an expansive array of economic data on 130,000 firms in 135 countries; data is provided in a variety of ways. |
| Global Economic Database (UN DESA) | Economy | Macroeconomic indicators in graphical interface and the traditional database. |
| IMF- IFS Database | Economy | International Financial Statistics |
| International Monetary Fund Data Mapper | Economy | World Economic Outlook |
| OECD Country statistical profiles | Economy | Economic surveys |
| OECD Factbook | Economy | Economic, environment and social statistics |
| The World Economic Forum | Economy | World Economic Forum reports on global issues including environment, education, individual industries and technologies. |
| UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) | Economy | World Investment Report |
| Edstats (World Bank) | Education | Education statistics |
| UNESCO Data Centre | Education | Indicators and raw data on education, literacy, science and technology, culture and communication. |
| Open Energy Info (OpenEI) | Energy | Open energy datasets |
| ECOLEX | Environment | Database providing information on environmental law– treaties, legislation, court decisions and literature. |
| Environmental Treaties and Resouce Indicators | Environment | Database of environmental treaties |
| InforMEA (UN) | Environment | UN information portal on multilateral environmental agreements. |
| United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) Environmental Indicators | Environment | Data on interational environmental statistics, including air & climate, biodiversity, energy & minerals, forests, governance, inland water resources, land & agriculture, marine & coastal areas, natural disasters, and waste. |
| Gender Equality Data & Statistics (World Bank) | Gender | Gender statistics |
| FAO Gender and Land Rights Database | Gender, Land Rights | Database on gender and land rights by country, topic selection and comparative reports |
| AIDSinfo (UNAIDS) | Global Health | Data on HIV/AIDS showing global trends– easy interface |
| Childinfo Database (UNICEF) | Global Health | Childrens rights, health and development |
| Distat, the UN Disability Statistics Database | Global Health | Basic statistics on human functioning and disability |
| Gapminder | Global Health | Global health indicators compiled using various data providers |
| Global Burden of Disease project- Health Metrics Institute | Global Health | DALYs |
| Health Systems Database (USAID, Abt) | Global Health | Health Systems |
| Health, Nutrition and Population Data & Statistics (World Bank) | Global Health | Health status, health determinants and health finances |
| Measusure DHS Demographic and Health Surveys (with USAID) | Global Health | Custom tables based on hundreds of demographic and health indicators. Customize tables to view indicators by background characteristics, over time, and across countries. |
| World Health Organization (WHO): Global Health Observatory | Global Health | WHO’s portal providing access to data and analyses for monitoring the global health situation |
| UNICEF childinfo | Global Health, Human Rights | Focusines on child and women’s health and development. |
| Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO): Governance | Governance | Governance in civil war |
| Quality of Government Institute (QOG) | Governance | Effects of quality of government on policy areas such as health, the environment, social policy, and poverty. |
| World Freedom Atlas | Governance | Data concerned with freedom, democracy, good governance, and development |
| Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) | Governance | Voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption |
| Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Data Project | Human Rights | Data on human rights violations for 195 countries from 1981-2009 |
| Freedom House | Human Rights | Human rights, democracy, governance |
| UNHCR: Population statistics | Human Rights | UNHCR Population statistics |
| Relief web | Humanitarian | Collection of maps indexed by country and the type of disaster or emergency |
| World Bank: Measuring Income Inequality Dataset | Inequality | Economy and income inequality |
| World Income Inequality Database (WIID) | Inequality | Economy and income inequality |
| Data.gov | Meta-data | Datasets from the US Federal Government |
| Data.gov.uk | Meta-data | Datasets from UK Government |
| UN Statistics Division | Meta-data | Datasets from the UN |
| DPA UN Peacemaker (Peace Agreements Database) | Peacemaking | Database of peace agreements, guidance, material and info on the UN’s mediation support services. |
| PovcalNet | Poverty | Poverty analysis tool |
| World Bank: Poverty & Equity Data | Poverty | Global poverty indicators |
| World Bank: Poverty and Inequality | Poverty, Inequality | Poverty analysis stata programs for poverty dynamic analysis |
| UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency) | Refugee Health, Human rights | Standards and indicators report for refugee health and human rights |
| Social Indicators (World Bank) | Social Development | Social development, population, health, housing, education, work |
| IDATD (Integrated Database of Trade Disputes for Latin America and the Caribbean) | Trade | Dispute Settlements and trade agreements by region and country |
| UNCTAD STAT | Trade | Database of trade and economic trends |