You can connect the DFO to an AI assistant such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini. Once it's connected, you can ask the assistant questions about development finance. It looks up the answer in DFO data and tells you which source the numbers come from. Setup takes a few minutes and doesn't need a DFO account.

The connection uses MCP (Model Context Protocol), a standard way for AI assistants to use outside tools. You only need one thing, the DFO's server address:

https://developmentfinance.org/mcp

Copy it exactly, with no slash at the end.

Add the DFO to your assistant

Check that it works

Ask your assistant:

What is health spending per person in Kenya?

Your assistant should show that it's using a DFO tool, then answer with figures that name World Development Indicators as the source. The wording changes each time, but the source should be the same.

Depending on the app, results appear as an interactive chart or table (Claude desktop, ChatGPT Work mode) or as a plain table in the reply (Gemini). ChatGPT's regular chat shows text only.

If it doesn't work

• The assistant answers without using the DFO. Check that the DFO connector is turned on for this chat. In ChatGPT, type @ and select it.
• The assistant says it can't reach the server. Check that the address ends in /mcp with no slash after it.
• The request takes too long or fails. Try a narrower question, such as fewer countries or a shorter time period.
• An assistant reports that a tool failed on the server. Send the DFO team the time of the call and the tool's name so they can find the error in the server logs.

For error codes and other technical problems, see Troubleshooting for developers.

For developers

The rest of this page covers the server's behaviour and setup for developer tools.

The endpoint

The server uses MCP over streamable HTTP at a single URL on the website:

https://developmentfinance.org/mcp

Leave off the trailing slash in every client configuration. The site answers /mcp/ with a 308 redirect to /mcp, which some clients don't follow.

No token is needed. The site forwards each request to the DFO AI service with its own credentials.

Tools

One endpoint serves nineteen tools:

A few notes:

• sources lists the datasets the DFO holds and how each is made.
• get_skill_file reads one file from a skill that get_skill loaded.
• sum_of adds two single-series slices, period by period.
• quotient_of divides one measure by another, such as GDP by population.
• resolve_anchor finds the latest period of the data, which a rolling growth, rank or filter call counts from.

How components are returned

Clients that support MCP Apps show components as interactive views. Clients that declare their capabilities without MCP Apps get the component's data as a Markdown table in the reply text.

The server treats clients on the 2025-11-25 protocol revision as MCP Apps hosts and leaves the data table out of the reply. Text-only clients should pass "include_projection": "full" to write_component or describe_component to get the table.

Time limits

Every call answers within 45 seconds.

All supported clients allow more than 45 seconds per tool call, so no timeout override is needed:

Add the server to a developer tool

claude mcp add --transport http dfo https://developmentfinance.org/mcp

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dfo": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://developmentfinance.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

[mcp_servers.dfo]
url = "https://developmentfinance.org/mcp"

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dfo": {
      "httpUrl": "https://developmentfinance.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Check the connection

Ask your assistant:

What is health spending per person in Kenya?

The assistant calls search with arguments like these:

{
  "parts": [
    {
      "variable": "health spending per person",
      "entities": [{ "text": "Kenya" }]
    }
  ],
  "raw_query": "health spending per person in Kenya"
}

The wording of variable varies between runs. search should return:

"Kenya's health expenditure per capita in international dollars, 2000 to 2023. World Development Indicators."  [spec_0002907ee44bf25fc98f343372614a84]
confidence high · 24 observations · has data
Measure: Healthcare expenditure per person · at least 1 StatVars.
observationAbout Kenya (country/KEN)
source World Development Indicators (fallback) · unit InternationalDollar (fallback)
provenance options for get_data: dc/base/WorldDevelopmentIndicators (World Development Indicators).
unit options for get_data: InternationalDollar (InternationalDollar), USDollar (USDollar).

no time_text was given; the answer was resolved across every period with data.

The reply should cite the same spec id as the output above and name World Development Indicators as the source.

If the assistant answers without calling search, check that the client lists the DFO tools. In Claude Code, claude mcp list shows each server and whether it connected.

Troubleshooting for developers

Next

• How the MCP server answers questions follows one question from search to a cited answer and lists what the server refuses.
• Tools reference: Every argument and error code.