Frequently asked questions

The website publishes DFID projects related to developmental activities which were operational in August 2009 when this projects database originally went live. Projects that have been completed since this date will also be shown.

In January 2011, as part of the coalition government's Aid Transparency Guarantee, we started publishing documents relating to projects. Published documents can be searched for using the 'Project documents' filter on the 'Advanced search' tab. Links to the documents, which you can download, are on the Project details page. You can also find a list of the latest documents on the different search tabs.

Data on projects may appear incomplete at times due to the following:

Some information (such as that relating to conditionality and aid effectiveness) started to be captured for projects commencing from 2008 onwards, so historical projects may not have this data.

The completion of certain fields is dependent on the stage and budget size of the project, so will at times appear blank.

There may be commercial sensitivities around disclosing some budgetary information, for example when going to tender during a procurement exercise. Financial information may not be displayed during such phases.

Some fields are displayed/hidden depending on whether they are relevant (for example causes for suspension of disbursement for a project will not be displayed if there has not been a suspension.)

Projects are set up with one or more components. Each component represents the type of funding for a particular aspect of the project. For example, a project to provide budget support to a particular country may have a component for the budget support, and another for technical assistance to the Ministry of Finance to audit the use of the funds. Or, a project for humanitarian assistance would have separate components for buying medical supplies (procurement of goods) and engaging search and rescue teams (procurement of services).

It is possible for projects to have more than one component of the same type, for example where grants are being given to a number of civil society organisations within the same country for the same purpose. Components help DFID categorise and track its budgets and expenditure.

In the table of search results on the ‘Project search’ page, click on the project title. This takes you to the ‘Project details’ page. The top part of the pages has a summary of the project together with graphs showing the Project Budget and Expenditure. The lower part of the page shows Component Details. Clicking on the ‘+’ sign for each component line will maximise the ‘Component details’ and then maximising the ‘Financial information’ line will display a table showing spend and budget details for the component.

Some of the projects shown consist of a number of components which are shown as links in the 'How the project is divided up (components)' section. The end date shown represents the date on which activity finishes for the component, which is only marked as 'completed' when all associated financial transactions have been dealt with. This may take up to six months to complete after the actual project work has finished.

The information reported on this website may not match other outputs for a number of reasons for example:

The data reported to the Development Assistance Committee are based on a calendar year basis, whereas this website presents data by financial year.

The information reported on this website covers DFID activities only, whereas the data reported to the Development Assistance Committee also include Official Development Assistance from other official UK sources (for example the Foreign & Commonwealth Office).

The sectors reported here are based on DFID's multi-sectoral approach, which means that up to 8 sector codes can be allocated to a project component. However, when we report to the Development Assistance Committee only one sector is reported for each project component.

The multilateral core contributions reported on this website are the full amounts, whereas in Development Assistance Committee reporting only the Official Development Assistance proportion of the contribution is reported. This only affects a small number of multilateral organisations.

Data reported to the Development Assistance Committee only include aid to recipients defined as eligible for Official Development Assistance, whereas the information reported on this website covers expenditure to all recipients.

The data reported in Statistics on International Development are based on a 'cash' basis, in line with international reporting practices, whereas the data reported here are on a 'resource' basis (i.e. expenditure is recorded at the time goods and services are consumed rather than when the associated cash transaction is recorded).

For more information on what is reported to the Development Assistance Committee please see the Development Assistance Committee reporting directives.

For consistency with the international development community, DFID's work is categorised here according to Development Assistance Committee terminology. You will find climate change initiatives by selecting 'General environmental protection' in the ‘Sector groups’ search on the ’Project search’ page, or by selecting 'Bio-diversity' in the ‘Sector’ search on the ‘Advanced search’ page.

Select either of the options 'Save search results' or 'Save financial details', at the top of the Project search results list, and follow the instructions.

This is used for projects that impact multiple continents, multiple regions across continents or multiple countries across regions/continents. It can also refer to projects whose output is for the developing world as a whole, for example research projects.

There are various reasons for this. It may for example represent: a return of funding due to underspending by a supplier when DFID has been providing upfront funding; an internal transfer of funds between components; repayment of loans; reclaimed VAT; and accruals where DFID may be awaiting an invoice this financial year which has already been recorded in the previous year.

In January 2011, we started publishing aid data in an internationally agreed XML format. Access to this data is through the International Aid Transparency Initiative registry website.

The UK was the first donor country to provide aid data in this format and, over time, this link will give you access to aid information supplied by a number of donors in the same format for you to download. When viewing a project in the DFID Projects Database you will be able to link to the associated IATI country file or view the IATI format for the selected project, both of which can be found in the Related Links box on the ‘Project details’ page.