These rules were agreed at the IATI TAG workshop in May 2012 and accepted by the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation when the Busan common standard containing these rules was formally agreed in June 2012.

To ensure the integrity of IATI's use of code lists, the following standard-wide rules should be adopted and applied as rigorously as possible. This is particularly important as we move forward to a new common standard. Nothing new is being proposed here: other than a move from informal to formal practice.

• Each code list must be clearly sourced from a single authority
  The standard makes use of codes that have been authored by inter alia the ISO, the OECD-DAC, the UN, and IATI itself. Each list needs to be sourced clearly.
• The authoritative version of each code list is the latest version as published by its authority
  For example "SS" became a valid code for South Sudan on the day on which ISO added this to 3166-1 Alpha-2.
• No additions or modifications are to be made to any code list, other than by its authority
  The logic of this rule is that we have a problem with the coding of Kosovo to which IATI, like many organisations, has assigned a code and added it to the ISO list. 
• The IATI Standard website should ensure that wherever possible code lists are dynamically retrieved from their source
  We need to encourage the OECD-DAC, for example, to publish all their code lists in machine readable format so that our code list utilities can provide a real-time link to the latest version.
• IATI maintained code lists must only be modified through the formal change control procedures
  i.e. through the formal upgrade procedures
• IATI should, wherever possible, alert its users to changes made in externally maintained code lists
  Announcements will be published on this Knowledge Base.