How we work

Our approach

We are proud to be independent and politically neutral. We are consistently objective in our approach to data and analysis – we never fit facts to suit an agenda. We directly engage with policy actors and decision-makers, whilst also supporting the efforts of civil society and others who are seeking to drive change. We make a trusted partner and friend to those we work with. Optimism runs through all that we do, and while the challenges we face are great, we believe that positive change can and will be achieved.

Partnerships and collaboration

Everything we do has partnerships and collaboration at its heart because data alone will not bring about the equitable and resilient world we want to see. We must put it in the hands of those who can use it, and ensure they are equipped to do so. That’s why our mission is centred around our partners, and why collaboration runs through our core areas of focus as an organisation.

Read about our current partnerships and collaborations .

Open and transparent

Openness and developing global public goods

We go beyond transparency and make our data analysis open so that it can be available as a global public good. The data section of our website allows anyone to access the analysis we produce for many of our publications in a format that is both machine readable and available in XML. This means users can see our calculations and easily use our analysis to support their work. Our website is built on an open source content management system – Wagtail – and we use public repositories to hold our code. As we create solutions to challenges with Wagtail and the Django web framework it uses, we contribute to the open source community by sharing these freely for all.

Transparency and publishing to IATI

We consistently make the case for greater transparency of financial flows and hold ourselves to the highest standards, securing a maximum five-star rating from Transparify. We make our full financial accounts for the last five years available online and unpack our income and expenditure in accessible and simple visualisations. We were the first civil society organisation to publish to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Standard, and we provide details of our project activities. In doing so, we enable better access to information about our work and make our data easy to trace and compare alongside datasets from other organisations. Through this work we support efforts to gain a comprehensive picture of activities and spending on development across the globe. You can explore our IATI data, and that of others, using the d-portal platform .

Founding IATI

DI played a key role in founding IATI in 2008, along with 13 governments and development agencies, and served as the technical lead on its Secretariat until 2023. We also helped to build IATI’s d-portal platform, which makes IATI data easier to explore and access.

See how we are using IATI data in our resources

Ethical and responsible

Our values are at the heart of everything we do, and we hold ourselves to high ethical standards. We go beyond legal compliance and regulations and are committed to ensuring we are socially, economically and environmentally responsible. We are a Living Wage and Disability Confident employer in the UK, and we apply these principles to our staff worldwide. We also adhere to the Ethical Trading Initiative’s Base Code of labour standards. Our responsible employer and business ethics statement explains how we meet and go beyond our commitment to these standards. All our staff are trained in anti-bribery, anti-bullying and equality. We have a safeguarding policy and a modern slavery and human trafficking statement , both of which apply to both ourselves and those we work with.