7.2 When does the Commission intend to publish consolidated aggregate reports on disbursements for TEIs of actors following a TE approach?
As TEIs have gained traction as of 2022, the Commission is not reporting separately on financial contributions to TEIs for 2021 but intends to take those contributions into account together withthe data for the year 2022. The Commission therefore intends to report total disbursements by TE approach actors for TEIs over the period 2021 and 2022 in 2024. Depending on the level and consistency of disaggregation throughout the reported data, an analysis differentiating contributions by recipient, sector etc. could be envisaged153.
Annex to the financial tracking guidance: Publishing IATI data for Team Europe Initiatives (TEI)
In the IATI standard, using the tag field to indicate a link to a Team Europe Initiative will enable precision and confidence. To do this, reporters of actors following a Team Europe approach154 are able to access a ‘code list’ of all the TEIs. This section provides guidance on the methodology to tag an IATI activity, alongside some Frequently Asked Questions.
Overview
This section provides guidance for publishers of IATI data, in terms of how to flag and identify activities that are linked to Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs).
IATI activities & TEIs
Organisations that publish IATI data do so principally through the units known as activities. An activity can represent various different units of aid, including a specific contract, project or a wide programme.
TEIs can be considered as a collection of activities, from a range of different actors, sharing a common goal and purpose. These can be new or pre-existing activities, dedicated to a specific TEI and its Joint Intervention Logic.
A core component of any IATI activity is financial data, including the amount of money that has been committed and spent to date.
A key metric for understanding the progress of any TEI is also financial data. Hence, IATI activities, and their associated transactions, can be of assistance to comprehending the fiscal progress of TEIs, alongside other sources.
Flagging IATI activities for a TEI: using the IATI tag
Any IATI activity will usually have a range of classifications and codes in place to indicate its modality, scope, geography and sectoral themes.
The IATI standard has a data field called tag, which enables for inclusion of non-statistical classifications in any activity. For the purposes of the TEIs, the principal way to relate any IATI activity is through use of the tag.
Tag vocabularies
The IATI standard allows for organisations to include a tag in two ways:
- Using tags that are already on a published and shared list
- Using tags that are internal to the publishing organisation
In both these cases, the IATI publisher must declare a vocabulary from which the tag is drawn. For internal tags a 99 (or 98) vocabulary is used. For shared vocabularies, a dedicated number is assigned by the IATI secretariat.
In the case of the TEIs, a shared vocabulary is being employed, so that Team Europe approach reporters can have commonality. Hence, a list of TEI tags has been published and made available via the IATI Tag Vocabulary Codelist. The TEI code list is identified through the vocabulary code number 4.
The TEI code list
To assist Team Europe approach reporters, a list of all TEIs has been published. This list is the comprehensive and authoritative source on all TEIs and is being managed by the European Commission (EC). Each entry on this code list includes the following information shown in table 7.
| Data field | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Code | Unique code for this TEI | TEI048 |
| Title EN | Title of this TEI in English | Green Deal – Renewable energy and sustainable energy |
| Title FR | Title of this TEI in French | Accord vert - Énergies renouvelables et énergie durable |
| Recipient regions/countries | Recipient of this TEI | Madagascar |
What data needs to be included in an IATI tag?
The tag is a dedicated field in the IATI standard.
To tag an activity as relevant to a TEI, the following information shown in table 8 should be included.
| Data field | Example | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Tag code | TEI048 | Required |
| Tag vocabulary | 4 | Required |
| Tag name | Green Deal — Renewable energy and sustainable energy | Optional |
In IATI data, organisations MUST include the code and vocabulary as a minimum, when using the tag field. It is not mandatory to include the name in IATI data, as the code in itself will support data users.
Accessing IATI activities with the TEI tag
When the TEI tag is added to IATI activities, there will be two main ways to search, identify and use this data.
- Using d-portal. The advanced search function enables a filter by specific tag vocabularies - meaning the TEI vocabulary will be directly part of the queries.
- The IATI datastore also allows for direct query, for those needing the raw XML, or spreadsheet, formats.
What happens when new TEIs are established?
These will be added to the TEI code list in a timely manner and announced to all stakeholders.
Generic TEI code (TEI000)
Alongside the specific TEI codes for individual TEIs, a generic TEI code - TEI000 - is also available on the code list.
This code should be used when a reporter’s system or process of actors following a Team Europe approach producing the IATI data cannot support different values or when they prefer for another reason to keep their TEI reporting overall or their reporting on a given activity more general.
Multiple TEIs for one IATI activity
In some cases, it may be relevant that a single IATI activity is applicable to more than one TEI. In those cases, in order to avoid double-counting of contributions to TEIs, organisations should still only report one TEI code in the tag field – this can be the code of the most relevant TEI or the generic TEI code. If they would like to mention the codes of all the specific TEIs that this activity is contributing to, the organisations can optionally enter the relevant information as free text into the activity description (see also below). Another possibility applicable to more complex IATI activities would be to break them down in the reporting in order to create one- to-one mappings between the IATI activities and the TEIs.
Adding a tag to a financial transaction
Currently, the tag field is only supported at the activity level in the IATI standard, meaning it cannot be applied to specific transactions.
Supplementing with free text
It is also encouraged that Team Europe approach reporters use the narrative fields in any IATI activity to expand upon and explain the relationship with any TEIs. These include:
- Activity title
- Activity description
- Transaction description
Adding this information will support Team Europe approach colleagues to understand in more detail the relationship between the IATI activities and the TEIs. However, this MUST always be supported through use of the tag field, to make the formal linkage.
Technical guidance
Using the IATI tag element for Team Europe Initiative (TEI) flagging.
IATI tag elements and attributes
In using the tag element in IATI XML, the code and vocabulary attributes must be present.
In the IATI format - XML - this would be:
<tag code="TEI048" vocabulary="4" />The narrative sub-element, i.e. the tag name, is optional, and is not required to transmit any meaning, as the TEI code list carries such information. However, this can also be included:
<tag code="TEI048" vocabulary="4">
<narrative>Madagascar Green Deal</narrative>
</tag>Usage
The TEI tag element can be used alongside other vocabularies.
Example of an IATI activity with both TEI and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) tags (note that the vocabulary numbering does not imply ordering):
<tag code="TEI048" vocabulary="4" />
<tag code="10" vocabulary="2" />153 It is not expected that a reporting on contributions for individual TEIs will be possible based on available data at that point (see section 5.2).
154 Actors following a Team Europe approach include the European Commission, the EU Member States – including their implementing agencies and public development banks – as well as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).