Frequently asked questions

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

We redesigned this website in Summer 2010, focussing on improving the usability of the pages and aligning them better with the rest of the DFID website. In January 2011, as part of the coalition government's Aid Transparency Guarantee, we started publishing documents relating to projects. Projects that have published documents can be searched for using the 'Project documents' filter on the 'Advanced search' tab. Links to the documents, which you can download in their native format, are on the project details page.

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

Information relating to conditionality and aid effectiveness is now being captured, but only for projects started from 2008 onwards, so historical projects may not 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.

In the search results, click on the blue project name on the project search page. This takes you to the Project details page with a summary of the project and a line for each component. Maximising the Component details and then maximising the Component financial details will display a table showing spend and budget details for the component.

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 itself 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. This helps DFID track its budgets and expenditure according to various categories.

This sometimes occurs due to certain fields being 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.)

Some of the projects shown consist of a number of components which are shown as links in the 'Other project 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 cleared. 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 DAC 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 DAC also include Official Development Assistance from other official UK sources (for example the Foriegn & Commonwealth Office).
The sectors reported here are based on DFID's multisectoral approach, which means that up to 8 input sector codes can be allocated to a project component. However, when we report to the DAC, only one sector is reported for each project component.
The multilateral core contributions reported on this website are the full amounts, whereas in DAC reporting only the ODA proportion of the contribution is reported. This only affects a small number of multilateral organisations.
Data reported to the DAC only include aid to recipients defined as eligible, 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 they are brought to book).
For more information on what is reported to the DAC please see the DAC reporting directives.

For consistency with the international development community, DFID's work is categorised here according to DAC terminology. Please look at 'General environmental protection' on the search by sector page - most climate change initiatives are classified under 'Bio-diversity'.

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

To find projects in the Middle East, click on 'see all locations', then select 'Iraq', 'Middle East', 'West Bank and Gaza' or 'Yemen' as appropriate (it's possible to select more than one from the list). As you select each item, the search will be carried out and your search results will include more projects.

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.

There are various reasons for this. It may for example represent a return of funding due to underspending when DFID has been providing upfront funding; an internal transfer of funds; 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.

You can download an XML file containing all the project data on this site to your PC so that you can use the data on your own web site by selecting the 'XML extract of the DFID project information database' option on the Project search screen. In January 2011, we started publishing aid data in an internationally agreed XML format. Access to this data is through the IATI registry website http://www.iatiregistry.org/. The UK is the first donor country to provide aid data in this format and, in time, this link will give you access to aid information supplied by a number of donor countries in the same format for you to download.