This portal seeks to increase transparency about where and how Norwegian development aid is used and the results the aid produces for poor countries and people.
• The portal promotes even more transparency about the use of Norwegian development aid.
• It introduces a better way to systematise the results information.
• In time, the portal will contribute to even better management of development aid.
Norway gives about one per cent of its gross national income to development aid each year to combat poverty and promote economic development and welfare in developing countries. The aid statistics show where the funding has been distributed and what it has been used for. As results information has not been systematised in a similar way previously, the Norwegian Government decided to establish a separate results portal.
Norad has developed the portal for development aid results in cooperation with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Climate and Environment.
The portal compiles information that used to be available on various – and separate – portals and websites. This applies to official aid statistics previously published on norad.no and information about ongoing projects on the
Reporting of the results for ongoing and concluded projects will be systematised and published. Grant managers at Norad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norwegian embassies will share their own assessments of results achievement for all projects that receive Norwegian development aid.
In the initial phase, the results assessments have been compiled and published on the portal for the sectors ‘basic education’ and ‘renewable energy’.
The portal will foster learning and sharing of experiences about what works well and less well, with the aim of improving the management of development aid.
Development of the portal is part of a broader effort to digitalise aid management. The application process for Norwegian grants has been digitalised mainly through the grants portal grants.mfa.no. This will be expanded as a grant management tool for the Norwegian aid administration.
Plans call for the grants portal to eventually become a source for the results assessments in the results portal. In this way, the portals will play a role in ensuring that the systematic publication of results assessments is integrated in the management of development aid.
• For further reading, go to the article Content of the portal
This portal provides official statistics on how Norwegian development aid funding is used and where it is distributed by country or region, sector and partner. It also gives results information from assessments of the progress and results of development aid projects, results stories and thematic reports.
• The statistics conform to the reporting standards of the OECD – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
• The results information in the portal is produced by Norad, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norwegian embassies.
The development aid statistics give an overview of the Norwegian aid provided to developing countries from 1960 to the last accounting year. It also includes detailed information about all development aid agreements and their funding. The statistics are reported to the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee as official development assistance (ODA) from Norway. Consequently, the terms and categories used in the statistics conform to the reporting standards of the OECD.
The portal gives an overview of the development aid provided to countries, sectors and partners, as well as a summary of each individual agreement. Norwegian development aid statistics date back to 1960, and the categories have changed over time. Complete information on sectors and partners before 1980 is not available, and different classification systems have been in use in the periods 1980–1998 and from 1999 until today. Except for multilateral organisations, partner information is not registered in the statistics before 1999.
The development aid statistics have become more detailed over time, and the information about older aid agreements is limited. In certain cases, the agreement information is exempt from public disclosure.
All official Norwegian development aid statistics from 1960 onwards with all variables are available to download from Access to microdata.
The results information on the portal ranges from results assessments of individual projects to detailed results stories of selected programmes and projects and thematic results reports for selected sectors, countries or initiatives.
• For further reading, go to article about results – and how results are measured.
The portal has a separate agreement page for all development aid projects. This also applies to previous agreements. These pages provide information about the agreement period, agreement partner, recipient country and sector, as well as financial information.
A project description is also available for many of the agreements. From 2020 onwards, the Sustainable Development Goal(s) the project will address is listed.
For selected projects in ‘basic education’ and ‘renewable energy’, the project objectives and results assessments are described. The progress of the projects and achievement of results are assessed and the results described. All the assessments will appear together on the agreement page for the project.
The signed agreement between the parties is published. Other information provided on the pages includes the partner’s own results reports and any independent evaluations of the project.
In the future, this will be expanded to more projects and sectors.
Results assessments are conducted annually by grant managers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad and at Norwegian embassies. The assessments are based on insight into the projects and the results information available from annual reports and final reports from the partner, as well as from mid-term reviews and final evaluations.
For ongoing projects, progress is assessed vis-a-vis the latest approved plan, the most important results are highlighted, and the grant manager comments on any areas where the progress is not as good as expected. The grant managers do a similar assessment of the degree of results achievement for the project at its conclusion.
The results stories are written by grant managers in Norad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at Norwegian embassies, with input from the partners. Older results stories have previously been published at norad.no. The results stories, accessible through the Norwegian site, are written in Norwegian only.
The stories delve more deeply into selected development aid projects and explain the background of the project, how it was carried out, by whom, how much funding was provided, and what the results have been for individuals, groups and society at large. The stories can provide important lessons learned.
Both projects that have generated good results and those with less satisfactory results are presented.
The thematic reports compile analyses and results for multiple projects within a sector or in a particular country. They are produced by experts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norwegian embassies, Norad, or with the assistance of external consultants.
The reports make it possible to analyse the achievement of results as a whole and to view Norwegian development aid in the context of larger development trends. The thematic reports in the portal are taken from Norad’s collection of publications at norad.no.
Norad grants permission to use and reproduce the information provided on this website. This permission is conditional on Norad being identified as the source (Source: Norad).
Norad cannot be held responsible for any failure or interruptions in the operations of this site. Nor can it be held responsible for any further use of statistics from this site.
For more details on the terms of use, see this information page on the Norwegian Licence for Open Government Data (NLOD).
When we talk about results, it is important to distinguish between what we have done – and what we have achieved. The latter are the results.
• Results are measured for all Norwegian development aid.
• Framework conditions in development aid can make measuring results a challenge.
• More actors than Norway often contribute to the same results.
Results measurement
Results are followed up in dialogue and cooperation with Norway’s partners. The partners submit regular reports, which makes it possible to track progress of the projects and assess the achievement of results at their conclusion. In addition to reports from partners, field visits and independent evaluations of projects and major initiatives are conducted. These efforts form much of the basis for the results information in this portal.
Framework conditions for results measurement
The access to information that we take for granted in Norway is limited in many of the partner countries. The quality of statistical overviews of the countries’ economies and development varies, complicating the task of measuring change. Some of the aid is used to improve such systems, but there is often also a need to set up separate data collection within the projects.
The overall objectives of development aid are often linked to major societal problems. However, linking the results of individual projects to larger changes in a society can be challenging. As a consequence, there is a need to report both on the direct results of an intervention and on the longer-term effects.
Results could be that school buildings have been better adapted to children with disabilities, that the tax administration’s ability to determine the tax base has been strengthened, or that a national action plan to combat modern slavery has been developed.
The intention is that these direct results should contribute to more long-term objectives, such as that more children with disabilities are attending school and learning more, tax collection is more effective, or fewer children are the victims of modern slavery. While development aid makes an important contribution in achieving such objectives, many different factors play a role in and affect societal development.
External factors can sometimes be so severe that the effects of the aid are almost wiped out for periods of time. Factors such as flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes or an eruption of conflict affect the results. A good year in agriculture can quickly lead to positive health effects, while drought can just as quickly have the opposite effect.
Multiple actors
Some of the development aid provided to multilateral organisations, such as the UN, is core funding. For this aid, it is difficult to know which results are due to Norwegian money. Sometimes we must be satisfied with highlighting joint results from a larger programme and accept that we cannot say exactly what proportion of the results can be attributed to Norwegian aid.