Narrative

The time-lag statistics attempt to assess how up to date the data is at the point that it is refreshed. For instance a publisher may refresh their data monthly, but the refreshed data is in fact three months old. Alternatively a publisher may only refresh their data once a year, but when they do it contains current data that is less than one month out of date.

Transactions are the most numerous and most regularly refreshed elements in reported IATI activities and they are therefore used to make this assessment.

The table of statistics shows the number of transaction dates reported in each of the last twelve calendar months. The current month is shown for informational purposes, but excluded from the assessment.

This calculation is redone in its entirety each night so is always relative to 'today'.

Assessment

These statistics are assessed as follows:

Exceptions

• Future transaction dates are not allowed in IATI and disrupt these statistics. For example a publisher might today have a transaction date reported for each month going forward for a year and never refresh their data. The statistics would, over the next year, as each of these future dates move into the past, assess the publisher to have a time-lag assessment of one month in arrears. For this reason not only are all future dates excluded, but the activities in which they are reported are excluded from future assessment until such time that a publisher's entire portfolio no longer contains any future dates.

Comparison with Global Partnership Indicator methodology

No change.