Glossary

OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives. Their goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all. They draw on 60 years of experience and insights to better prepare the world of tomorrow. Together with governments, policy makers and citizens, they work on establishing evidence-based international standards and finding solutions to a range of social, economic and environmental challenges. From improving economic performance and creating jobs to fostering strong education and fighting international tax evasion, they provide a unique forum and knowledge hub for data and analysis, exchange of experiences, best-practice sharing, and advice on public policies and international standard-setting. You can find more information here. 

The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) deals with development cooperation matters, grouping the world’s main donors and defining and monitoring global standards in key areas of development. The DAC Secretariat is responsible for the processing, quality control and dissemination of development finance data reported by the donors, including on official development assistance. You can find more information here. 

The OECD also serves as the Secretariat to the International Forum on TOSSD (IFT). The IFT Secretariat is carrying out a series of country and thematic pilot studies to test the TOSSD methodology and make sure that the framework addresses the information needs of recipient countries. You can find more information here. 

Team Europe
Team Europe consists of the EU, its 27 Member States, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). 

The Team Europe approach means joining forces so that our joint external action becomes more than the sum of its parts. By working together in an inclusive and coordinated manner and pooling our resources and expertise, we deliver more effectiveness and greater impact for our partner countries. The Team Europe approach increases the capacity of the EU and its Member States to work together with partner countries to address global challenges, mitigate their consequences and allow a social, green and digital transition, while upholding human rights, democracy, the rule of law and gender equality. The Team Europe approach also enhances coordination across the triple humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus. 

Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs)
Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs) bring together European development/external action partners to deliver concrete, transformational results for partner countries or regions. They focus on identifying critical priorities that constrain development in a given country or region, where a coordinated and coherent effort by ‘Team Europe’ would ensure results with a transformative impact. 

Channel
The “Channel of delivery” data field captures information on the organisations that implement aid projects and are accountable for the funds. Where several levels of implementation are involved, only the first level is reported to the CRS as channel of delivery. By contrast, IATI data includes several related fields for this purpose. Since an activity can be managed by different organisations at different levels, knowing who is responsible for which aspect is key for aid management. 

Commitment 
The total financial commitment for the activity for the lifetime of the activity. 

CRS
The Creditor Reporting System (CRS) serves the reporting on aid activities from members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), multilateral organisations and other donors, including annual statistics of official development assistance (ODA). The data are part of the official statistical reporting to the OECD. The DAC Secretariat is responsible for data processing, quality control and dissemination. The DAC and CRS code list is available here. 

DAC
OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.

Description 
The description of an activity gives information about the aims of the activity, such as why it has been designed and authorised, which purpose it has, who will benefit from it and how it fits with the donor's policy goals. The descriptions in this tool appear in the form and language reported by the donor. 

Disbursement 
An individual financial payment; the actual amount placed at the disposal of a recipient country or organisation. 

Documents
If a donor has included links to documents or online resources about an activity in the publication to IATI, they will appear in the tab ‘Documents’ on the project page. It could be tenders, strategies, contracts, reviews and evaluations, a Memorandum of Understanding, activity websites, photos etc. 

Donor Category 
The donors are divided in two groups in the tool, depending on the data source used: EU Institutions and EU Member States. 

Donors
The aid providers included in the tool: the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and the 27 EU Member States (all EU Member States are reporting their ODA to OECD, but not all of them are reporting their ODA to IATI). 

End Date
The date when an activity ended or was planned to end, depending on the information available. 

EUR
EUR is the currency code used to represent the euro, the official currency for the majority of the EU Member States. 

Geolocation
Geolocation is the identification of the geographic location (latitude and longitude) of an activity within a country. 

GNI 
Gross National Income. 

Grant equivalent 
ODA on a grant equivalent basis measures the donor effort depending on the level of concessionality. A percentage is assigned to each concessional ODA-eligible loan based on several parameters (risk of default measured ex-ante depending on the beneficiary country income group, duration of the loan, interest rate, grace period). This percentage (the so-called “grant element”) is applied to the disbursed amount of the loan to calculate its “grant equivalent”, i.e. the “gift portion” of the loan. The grant equivalent methodology is the new main OECD standard for ODA reporting starting from 2018 data. More information is available on the OECD website here. 

Gross Disbursements 
The ODA Dashboard provides the option of displaying the ODA data in gross disbursements, i.e. showing the full amounts extended to the recipients. The ODA Infographics present the data exclusively in gross disbursements. 

Humanitarian assistance 
Humanitarian assistance refers to the financial resources for humanitarian action. It is delivered during and in the aftermath of human-made crises and disasters caused by natural hazards. 

IATI 
The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) is a global multi-stakeholder initiative to improve the transparency of development and humanitarian resources. At the heart is the IATI Standard, which is a set of rules and guidance for publishing useful development and humanitarian data in a machine-readable format. The IATI code lists are available here. 

The Commission is a member of IATI since the inception of the initiative and actively participates in the Members’ Assembly and in technical discussions. The EU institutions and 15 Member States publish to IATI (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden). 

Implementing Partner 
The organisation that is principally responsible for delivering the activity, as reported to IATI. 

Income Group 
The DAC list of ODA Recipients shows developing countries and territories eligible for receiving Official Development Assistance. The List presents countries and territories in groups: the Least Developed Countries, Other Low-Income Countries, Lower-Middle Income Countries and Territories, and Upper-Middle Income Countries and Territories. The list is revised by the DAC every 3 years. 

Modalities 
The type of co-operation modality in the OECD classification which shows the broad category of the activity, e.g. budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds, project-type interventions, other technical assistance, administrative costs etc. Each category is broken down into sub-types. 

Net Disbursements 
ODA in net disbursements records the actual flows of cash between donor and recipient country. An ODA-eligible loan is initially recorded at ‘face value’ as ODA and subsequent repayments by recipient countries are then subtracted as negative ODA. The net disbursement methodology was the main OECD standard for ODA reporting up to 2017 data and has been applied to a few specific components of ODA after that year when the grant equivalent has not been defined yet. More information is available on the OECD website here. 

ODA 
Official Development Assistance (ODA) is defined as concessional government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of developing countries. ODA includes monetary transfers (e.g. grants and loans to governments and projects), non-monetary transfers (e.g. food aid, technical cooperation) and support that does not contain any additional transfer of resources (e.g. debt relief). 

In the ODA Dashboard, the following formula is applied to obtain the total ODA disbursements for a given Member State donor: Bilateral ODA Disbursements from CRS + ODA Disbursements for Core Contributions to Multilateral Institutions – EU Member States’ Disbursements for Core Contributions to EU Institutions. The latter is excluded in order to avoid double-counting between the EU Institutions and EU Member States when adding up their respective ODA to obtain the total for Team Europe. As a result, the ODA funds which EU Member States contribute to the EU Institutions are only accounted for once, i.e. within the projects conducted by the EU Institutions. 

In the ODA Infographics, the individual ODA from each of the 27 Member States and from EU Institutions respectively is shown comprehensively. The calculation of Team Europe’s total ODA, where their bilateral ODA and their multilateral core (incl. voluntary) contributions (in the form of imputed multilateral ODA to the respective recipient) are added up, removes the overlap between EU Institutions and the 27 Member States resulting from the fact that Member States are also providing such core contributions to EU Institutions. 

Policy Markers 
The policy markers indicate to which degree an activity addresses certain cross-sectoral development-policy objectives. Is it a “principal”, “significant” or “not (yet) targeted” objective? The Rio and environment markers concern Environment, Biodiversity, Desertification, Climate change mitigation and Climate change adaptation. There are also markers for Gender Equality and other areas. 

Recipient 
The country receiving the Official Development Assistance from the EU Donors. 

Recipient Group 
The recipients are grouped into three categories in the tool to allow for a dedicated drill-down into Partner Countries, Partner Regions and ‘Developing countries, unspecified (Unallocated)’. 

Results 
The results show whether activities achieved their intended outputs in accordance with the stated goals or plans. If the donor has published the results of the activity to IATI, they will appear under the results tab on the project page. 

Sector 
The specific area that an activity supports at granular level, e.g. primary education and higher education, basic health care and health infrastructure, road transport and water transport, or wind energy and energy research etc., equal to the OECD CRS purpose codes. When a sector is not (correctly) reported by the donor or when an activity cannot be allocated to a particular sector, it is presented as Unallocated. 

Sector Category 
The overarching category of the area that an activity supports more generally, e.g. education, health, transport and storage or energy etc., corresponding to the DAC 5 codes (one level above the OECD CRS purpose codes). 

Sourcing Logic 
The sourcing logic allows users to switch between different data sources. More information about each data source can be found in the tab “About”. 

Start Date 
The date when an activity started or is planned to start, depending on the information available. 

Sustainable Development Goals 
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. 

Team Europe’s ODA targeting climate change
This graph in the ODA infographics shows the absolute value of Team Europe’s total bilateral ODA for climate change mitigation and adaptation, differentiating between main and principal objective. 

Title 
The title is a concise statement that identifies a Project or a Project Activity. 

Transactions 
The list of Commitments and Disbursements per date as reported by the donors to IATI. Transactions are presented on the project page. 

Type of Finance 
The type of finance is an OECD classification which distinguishes between financial instruments of the activities, e.g. grants or loans. 

Unallocated (Recipient) 
This Unallocated category represents flows that cannot be allocated to a geographical area (country or region). They typically include core funding to multilateral organisations and cases when countries or regions have not been reported correctly (data quality issue). In addition, operational flows that are part of global programmes and cannot be allocated to a country or a region, as well as the administrative expenditure eligible as ODA are also counted as geographically “unallocated”. 

Unallocated (Sector) 
This Unallocated category represents flows that cannot be allocated to a sector. They typically include core funding to multilateral organisations and cases when sectors have not been reported correctly (data quality issue). 

Year
The year represents a calendar year in which the disbursement (payment) under an activity was made.

Channel of delivery 
Channels of delivery are entities that have implementing responsibility over the activity, are normally linked to the provider agency by a contract or other binding agreement, and are directly accountable to it. They are a key element of the TOSSD framework since they help identify the institution responsible for the execution of an activity, which is essential in order to track flows and improve accountability in both provider and partner countries. Where activities have several implementers, the principal implementer is the one that should be reported (e.g. the entity receiving the most funding). In the case of loans, the borrower is the one reported (i.e. the first entity outside the provider country that receives the funds). 

Development enablers 
Development enablers are the means that help provide International Public Goods (IPGs) and/or address global challenges. They often have the characteristics of IPGs. They can be seen as “intermediate” IPGs as opposed to final IPGs. 

DG (Directorate-General) 
The Commission is organised into policy departments, known as Directorates-General (DGs), which are responsible for different policy areas. DGs develop, implement and manage EU policy, law, and funding programmes. In addition, service departments deal with particular administrative matters. Executive agencies manage programmes set up by the Commission. You can find more information here. 

Financial Instrument 
TOSSD resource flows are provided through numerous financial instruments. These are categorised as grants, debt instruments, mezzanine finance instruments, equities and shares in collective investment vehicles, direct provider spending as well as subsidies and similar transfers. Included are also instruments that generate contingent liabilities but not necessarily a flow from the provider to the recipient (e.g. guarantees). 

Global challenges 
Global challenges are issues or concerns that bring disutility on a global scale and that need to be addressed globally. There is a significant overlap between International Public Goods (IPGs) and global challenges. Global challenges are often the opposite of IPGs (e.g. climate change and stable climate). However, not all activities addressing global challenges are IPGs (e.g. primary education programmes). Global challenges are addressed through TOSSD resources. 

Heading 
Headings are the spending categories of the EU budget. They bring together policy clusters, i.e. specific policy areas or policy objectives, into one thematic area and express the nature or purpose of the expenditure concerned. These are the headings of the Multiannual Financial Framework of 2021-2027: 

• Heading 1: Single Market, Innovation and Digital 
• Heading 2: Cohesion, Resilience and Values 
• Heading 3: Natural Resources and Environment 
• Heading 4: Migration and Border Management 
• Heading 5: Security and Defence 
• Heading 6: Neighbourhood and the World 
• Heading 7: European Public Administration 

International Forum on TOSSD (IFT) 
The International Forum on TOSSD (IFT) is an inclusive group of experts from provider countries, recipient countries and multilateral organisations that has been collectively developing TOSSD since 2017. You can find further information here. 

International Public Goods (IPGs) 
International Public Goods (IPGs) are goods which provide benefits that are non-exclusive and available for all to consume at least in two countries. The term “good” refers to resources, products, services, institutions, policies and conditions. IPGs are supported by TOSSD resources. 

Keywords 
The keywords are used to identify activities of particular policy interest, as follows: 

• COVID: to identify activities primarily aimed at controlling the COVID-19 pandemic or responding to its socio-economic impacts. 
• Climate change adaptation: to identify activities aimed at enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change. 
• Climate change mitigation: to identify activities aimed at reducing anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and enhancing greenhouse gas sinks and reservoirs. 
• Biodiversity: to identify activities that have, as main objective, to preserve biodiversity. 
• TEIs: to identify activities that contribute to Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs). This keyword can be operationalised as one single keyword (a binary flag/tag, i.e. “TEI000”) or rather a variety of unique keywords with codes referring to the individual TEIs (i.e. “TEI001”, “TEI002” etc.). 

Modality 
The TOSSD modality describes the form in which support is provided. These modalities are categorised as budget support; core contributions to NGOs, other private bodies, Public-Private Partnerships and research institutes; core contributions to multilateral organisations; contributions to specific-purpose programmes and funds managed by implementing partners (excluding self-benefit); projects; in-kind technical cooperation experts; other technical cooperation; research and development; scholarships and imputed students costs in provider countries; debt relief; support to refugees, protected persons and migrants; administrative costs and expenditures in the provider country not included elsewhere. 

Officially-supported 
TOSSD aims to capture the entirety of instruments and modalities used by official provider countries and organisations to support sustainable development, including mechanisms that mobilise resources from the private sector. Therefore, in the context of TOSSD, “officially-supported resources” are defined as: 

• resources provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies, and public sector corporations; 
• private resources mobilised by official interventions, where a direct causal link between the official intervention and the private resources can be demonstrated. 

Pillar I 
Pillar I of TOSSD includes activities that involve a cross-border resource flow to a country on the List of TOSSD recipients (available as part of the TOSSD code lists here). This list includes all countries and territories that were present on the “DAC List of ODA recipients” in 2015 (the year when the 2030 Agenda was adopted) adjusted over time for any other countries and territories that have activated the TOSSD opt-in/opt-out procedure. 

Pillar II 
Pillar II of TOSSD covers global and regional expenditures provided in support of International Public Goods (IPGs) and development enablers and/or to address global challenges. It includes activities whose benefits are of transnational reach. Resources under Pillar II are provided at two levels:  

• activities of multilateral, global or regional institutions that promote international cooperation for sustainable development (e.g. norm-setting, international oversight, knowledge generation and dissemination);  
• certain expenditures incurred by providers in their own countries or in non TOSSD recipient countries (e.g. research and support to refugees). 

Policy Markers 
Policy Markers indicate to which degree an activity addresses certain cross-sectoral development-policy objectives. These cover the areas of economic well-being, social development, environmental sustainability and regeneration and democratic accountability, protection of human rights and the rule of law. Policy markers are based on a three-point scoring system, to qualitatively track the financial flows: “principal”, “significant” or “not targeted” objective. The Rio and environment markers concern Environment, Biodiversity, Desertification, Climate change mitigation and Climate change adaptation. There are also markers for Gender Equality and other areas. 

Provider Agency 
Agency within the provider country that has budget responsibility and controls the activity for its own account. The provider agency is the government entity (central, state or local government agency or department) financing the activity from its own budget. For multilateral organisations, this identifies the department or fund financing the activity within the institution. 

• Bilateral providers are countries and territories that undertake activities in support of sustainable development in third countries. 
• Multilateral providers are international agencies, institutions, organisations or funds whose members are governments and who are represented at the highest decision-taking level in the institution by persons acting in an official capacity and not as individuals. Multilateral institutions include i) United Nations agencies, programmes, funds and commissions; ii) the International Monetary Fund; iii) the World Bank Group; iv) regional development banks; v) the European Union institutions; and vi) other multilateral funds, partnerships, initiatives and financing facilities. 

Sector 
The specific area that an activity supports, e.g. education, health, agriculture, infrastructure or governance, corresponding to the OECD CRS purpose codes. When a sector is not (correctly) reported by the donor or when an activity cannot be allocated to a particular sector, it is presented as Unallocated. 

TOSSD 
Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) is a statistical measure that includes all officially-supported resources to promote sustainable development in developing countries. This includes i) cross-border flows to developing and vulnerable countries and ii) resources to support development enablers and/or address global challenges at regional or global levels. TOSSD measures both official resources and private resources mobilised through official means. 

In the TOSSD Dashboard, a specific approach is applied to obtain the total TOSSD disbursements for a given Member State provider. In a first step, the following components are added up: Bilateral flows directly to developing countries + Earmarked and core contributions to multilateral organisations + Domestic expenditures. The result is the provider perspective which includes all TOSSD flows as reported by the respective provider countries. In a second step, the EU Member States’ Disbursements for Core Contributions to EU Institutions (identified based on the modality and channel) as well as for Earmarked Contributions to EU Institutions (identified mainly based on the channel) are removed from those amounts in order to avoid double-counting between the EU Institutions and EU Member States when adding up their respective TOSSD to obtain the total for Team Europe. As a result, the TOSSD funds which EU Member States contribute to the EU Institutions are only accounted for once, i.e. within the projects conducted by the EU Institutions.

TOSSD Recipient 
Countries and territories which receive cross-border resource flows from providers and which were present on the “DAC List of ODA recipients” in 2015 (the year when the 2030 Agenda was adopted) adjusted over time for any other countries and territories that have activated the TOSSD opt-in/opt-out procedure.