QWIDS - A new user interface for DAC International Development Statistics

This week OECD DAC had released a new user interface for its data statistics database. The new interface, called QWIDS (Query Wizard for International Development Statistics), is a huge improvement and a big step forward for accessibility of aid information.   

The DAC website has long been the most comprehensive source of validated aid data for OECD donors, yet has until now been under used. This may be in part because previously you required a good understanding of how the underlying data was structured to use it effectively. The new QWIDS interface is much improved as it allows you to logically select the data you are interested in regardless of which data set it comes from – you no longer have to know which table to go to for ODA disbursements or commitments (DAC 2a & DAC 3a respectively for those interested).

QWIDS also allows you to drill down to the underlying project data, which was previously available through a separate system, creditor reporting system - CRS. (are you keeping up?) 

Of course, as ever, the main drawback is that the data is still not as up-to-date as we would like – 2007 figures for aggregate data is now in the system, but the latest detailed project data from CRS is from 2006 (2007 should arrive soon) 

After an initial play with QWIDS, it immediately feels much more intuitive than previous interfaces, and there are some other nice features such as ‘popular queries’ that can be run from a click of a button. It also seems that queries are URL based, so potentially anyone can create useful queries and save the URL to easily re-run. In fact, sounds like a useful webpage is waiting to be written to allow people to share and find useful DAC queries….watch this space.  

I thought I heard rumours of an API to provide direct access to the data, but I couldn’t see any mention of it anywhere. This would be a great addition as it would enable others to repurpose the data and create new ways of displaying it. 

For old hands, the old way of finding data through OECD.Stat and CRS interfaces is still available. In fact, there are still some reporting needs that can’t be met through the QWIDS interface – e.g. policy markers and Rio convention categories – so at the moment these are still needed.  

So the new interface gets the thumbs up and is a big improvement. Hopefully it will inspire more people to use the DAC databases, and encourage more use of aid information, which is a good thing. 

Finally, whilst the new interface does a good job of simplifying some of complexities of the DAC data, this is still a complex set of data. If you need some help with this, DI are here to help: our FAQ page outlines some of the issues; you can also post your questions about using the DAC data on the aidinfo forum and our resident experts will do their best to answer; and last but not least, we also run facilitated free aid statistics information sharing workshop......