Sub-national location

[andylolz]

Description

The sub-national geographic location is information about where the activity is located within a country.

This is only expected if the activity is in the implementation, completion or post-completion phase.

This is not expected if the activity has been marked with the recipient region code 998 (bilateral/unspecified) - the intention is to exclude activities that do not have any geographic focus.

This is not expected if the sector code is administrative costs (91010).

Proposed tests

IATI 2.0x

Firstly:

For each current activity,
if `activity-status/@code` is one of (2, 3, 4)
and `recipient-region/@code` is not 998
and `sector/@code` is not 91010
then `location` should be present

Secondly:

For each current activity,
if `activity-status/@code` is one of (2, 3, 4)
and `recipient-region/@code` is not 998
and `sector/@code` is not 91010
then `location/point` should be present

IATI 1.0x

Firstly:

For each current activity,
if `activity-status/@code` is one of (2, 3, 4)
and `recipient-region/@code` is not 998
and `sector/@code` is not 91010
then `location` should be present

Secondly:

For each current activity,
if `activity-status/@code` is one of (2, 3, 4)
and `recipient-region/@code` is not 998
and `sector/@code` is not 91010
then `location/coordinates` should be present
or `location/point` should be present

NB these tests were updated to ignore activities with sector code 91010 throughout, as specified in the test description. Thanks to @ToonVB for pointing out this error

[AndieVaughn]

Not all country projects have sub-national locations and it is unrealistic that 100% of transactions should fulfill this field A full score should be a percentage and not 100%. Otherwise, this test somewhat encourages donors to put in erroneous data (like the center of the country or the capital) which distorts the data.

For example, a project working to build capacity of state officials that takes place in the capital should not require a sub-national location.

[ToonVB]

Sorry, but could you indicate the difference/relation between the 2 tests ? The 2nd test requires a location for admin. costs as well ? It would feel a bit odd to mention the location of our field offices ? Furthermore, a whole lot of activities are related to an entire country, budget support of course, but also projects that aim to support the nation-wide functioning of line-ministries etc. In fact the portion of projects focused on 1 specific location is declining since years...

[andylolz]

@ToonVB: Thanks for flagging the issue with administrative costs. You’re right – the intention was that both tests would ignore administrative activities. I’ve updated the second test to reflect this.

[andylolz]

Thanks for the comments here.

We will modify the tests to exclude activities with aid type G01 rather than sector code 91010.

Except for activities where aid type is G01, we expect to see sub-national locations for all activities. A project working to build capacity of state officials that takes place in the capital should provide the co-ordinates of the capital as its sub-national location. Projects that aim to support the nation-wide functioning of line ministries should provide the location(s) of those line ministries. The location element provides a number of ways to be more specific about the location e.g. via the activity-description; location-reach etc. We think it should be possible to provide this information.