Using the org file to report Covid-19 budget?

Consultations COVID-19
#1

Has anyone considered using the org-file to report how much of one’s budget is allocatied/redirected to Covid-19? The reason I ask is that some organizations can say of their budget is expected to go to Covid-19 but are unable to specify activity data. This information is shared between providers but is shared in a manual and unstructured manner. I was speaking to @AVaughn about this last week and it seems unreasonable that organizations call eachother to gather this information on spreadsheets. I mean, this is tedious work and the information could quickly become out of date.

I came to think of suggestions @OJ_ proposed a couple of years ago (but then suggesting that core support coming in to an organization could be presented in org file (I hope I remember that correctly)).

With other words, make the org file more of a narrative of an organizations overall budget instead of focusing on the forward looking aggregated budget. Last summer @stevieflow brought up the question if the org file is used (under topic: Does anyone use the Organisation file?). Maybe we could think wider about the use cases.

However, the org file specifies where the money is going (org or country) but doesn’t specify the purpose as far as I can see. So this may not at all be reasonable. In that case it should be possible to publish a document with the overall Covid-19 spending. Unless anybody sees a reason for not doing so.

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#2

I think this might be possible using the budget line element: http://reference.iatistandard.org/203/organisation-standard/iati-organisations/iati-organisation/total-budget/budget-line/ - which has a narrative component as well?

In Copenhagen there was also a Danish presentation I went to on how to use the Org files to do similar things.

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#3

Thank you, yes! That makes sense.

#4

Thank you for raising this @Melinda! I have now added your post under the COVID-19 category as this is a very good question to understand from organisation if/how they plan on using the IATI Organsiation file in the context of covid-19. This topic did not come up during the webinars and consultations so far.

@matmaxgeds has correctly linked to total budget/ budget-line which has a narrative component and can be used for seperating COVID-19 allocated budgets. In the organisation file there is also total-expendifure/expense-line with narrative that can also be used by organisations at a later date.

It will be really good to hear from others on this topics!

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#5

Our Org Files follow our official budget book which our member states approve. It is at a high aggregated level and would not be reformatted to get to the level of detail that would isolate COVID-19 specific details so this wouldn’t be an option for us.

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#6

Ok, thank you Michelle! I am trying to wrap my head around how the org files are being used in general and this is helpful to know.

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#7

For what it is worth. It is the same reason we are struggling with the GB desire to have our humanitarian info flagged in our org file so they can do “coverage” calculations. Our budget and audited financials don’t get broken down that way. And even if they did, we still have the issue of IPSAS versus modified budget methods of accounting.