Foreign Assistance Dashboard Update
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
July 30, 2013
The Foreign Assistance Dashboard is a key element of the U.S. Government’s commitment to improve transparency in the delivery of U.S. foreign assistance. Increasing data transparency from all U.S. agencies that fund or implement foreign assistance activities will meet the U.S. Government’s domestic and international transparency commitments, including those pertaining to:
International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)
U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, Obligations and Loan Authorizations Congressional report (“the Greenbook”), required in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended
Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation
U.S. National Action Plan for the Open Government Partnership
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
The Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are pleased to announce the release of the most detailed data yet available on the Foreign Assistance Dashboard. USAID has added over 50,000 financial transactions reflecting spending as recent as June 30, 2013. For the first time, members of the public can now search and visualize expanded, timely information about what, where, how, and with whom USAID programs work. The financial transactions include detailed information across 30 descriptive fields, including vendor, location, award title, descriptions, and more. The addition of USAID’s financial transactions is a significant milestone for U.S. Government foreign assistance transparency. The new USAID data is visualized on the site here, can be downloaded in machine-readable format, and is included in the U.S. Government’s data files in the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) format found here.
The Foreign Assistance Dashboard serves as a tool for users to access U.S. foreign assistance data by country, sector, and agency in an easy-to-understand format. The site provides a visual presentation of foreign assistance data in a standard and user-friendly way. Users can manually query, filter, and download the data on the site for further analysis. The Dashboard has become the U.S. Government’s main tool for improving foreign aid transparency with over 587,000 visitors since its initial launch in December 2010.
The Foreign Assistance Dashboard displays data for the Department of State, USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Treasury. The Dashboard continues to expand with the goal of including detailed foreign assistance budget, financial, and program data from all U.S. Government agencies that fund or implement foreign assistance in accordance with OMB Bulletin 12-01. As new data are added to the Dashboard, the IATI data files will also be updated to reflect these new data available on the site.
To understand the information presented in the Foreign Assistance Dashboard, users are encouraged to read the supplementary information under the What You Should Know section of the website. Comments, questions, or suggestions can be submitted through the Contact Us form on the site.
