01Built to close the gap between financial flows and real-world impact
Every year, billions of dollars move across borders as aid, loans, investment, and remittances. These financial flows shape whether countries can build infrastructure, respond to crises, deliver healthcare, and invest in long-term growth. But the data behind them remains fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to access.
The Development Finance Observatory is a new platform bringing development finance data together in one place.
The cost of data fragmentation
Development finance data exists. The OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, national governments, and dozens of other institutions publish decades of reporting standards, methodologies, and carefully curated datasets.
Taken as a whole, this data can help us understand the critical financing flows that drive economic development and essential needs, discern trends over time, and identify gaps.
But the data lives in separate systems with incompatible formats and update cycles that can lag reality by 12 to 24 months. Everyone who needs to follow the money reconciles those sources manually.
When the stakes are high and the data is hard to use, evidence loses out to anecdotes.
Development finance is shifting fast
The people who need to respond can’t afford to work with data that’s already out of date.
03/A2x
Debt service in low and lower-middle income countries is growing at more than twice the pace of their economies — 8.5% annually on average, compared to GDP growth of just 4% between 2020-2024.
03/B56%
Multilateral institutions have become the bedrock of development finance. In 2024, they accounted for 56% of net financial flows to low- and lower-middle income countries, up from 28% a decade ago.
03/C-$19 billion
International funding to low-and lower-middle income countries is in decline. Bilateral aid and lending fell by $19 billion over the last five years compared to the previous decade. And recent aid cuts are accelerating the trend.
04Better decisions start with connected data
The Development Finance Observatory (DFO) is built to reduce fragmentation and friction. Not by replacing the institutions that produce data, but by connecting their data.
The DFO integrates data on aid, debt, climate and health finance, domestic budgets, and remittances into a single open platform – making it more interconnected and usable – with every number traceable to its source. It also supports a new generation of AI-assisted workflows, making trusted data easier to access and explore.
The DFO is an initiative by ONE Data, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation via its public charity, RF Catalytic Capital, and Google.org.
Built to be used, not read
The development sector doesn’t need another data repository, policy platform, or library of reports.
The DFO is designed to end up inside other people’s work, not to sit on its own website.
05/AFor researchers
and analysts
Start from data you can trust. The DFO gives you clean, sourced development finance data with clear methodology — so you can spend less time reconciling conflicting figures and more time on analysis.
05/BFor journalists
and policy advisors
Get to credible answers faster. In practice, this looks like a number with a clear source, a chart you can cite, and a response to a hard question that doesn’t require a week of data work — whether you’re writing a story, briefing a principal, or making the case for change.
05/CFor government officials and planners
Track the financing flows that shape your country’s fiscal position. Know what’s been committed and where the gaps are.