The challenges of data on the financing response to COVID-19

The global financial response has been unprecedented. Huge volumes of resources are being pledged, committed and mobilised from diverse organisations through diverse funding instruments; however, getting an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the extent and detail of the response is difficult. Data on these activities is collected by a range of systems with various purposes and different ways of describing financial flows that may act over different timeframes. 

Comparing or combining data from different sources is hard without a joined-up approach to connect the pieces in a coherent whole. How much is being raised? When is this actually being disbursed? Are the funds new or repurposed? Where is it going and for what purpose? How long is it taking to get there? And, how do these funding decisions relate to and impact on the resourcing of responses to other, non-Covid-19 humanitarian and development needs, both now and in the coming months? 

The first in a series of papers by Development Initiatives (DI) and the Centre for Disaster Protection (CDP), this piece takes a look at some of the key information systems tracking the global financial response. The series aims to better understand the data everyone can access, to identify what is missing, and to try and join the data up to create a more coherent picture in a language that is accessible to all.