How does IATI aim to combine global standards with local classifications, for example fiscal years and sectoral classifications?
IATI aims to design a standard that has common global standard elements where appropriate, but most importantly has flexibility to incorporate local standards where necessary. Donor staff would classify projects according to a combination of universal and local classifications. Most of the data collected about each project would be universal – for example the dates and amounts of transactions and financial terms. In addition to the universal classifications, projects would also be tagged with any specific classifications and information needed for local systems (e.g. national budget classifications and those used in local aid information management systems (AIMS)) This would apply for example to sectoral/budget classifications, administrative units, country financial years, language, sub-national geographic classifications, and country specific results indicators. This may seem like additional work because it means double coding some information for each project. But donors already hav
