The U.S. government’s newly launched online aid tool has been updated, and it now features explanations for overseas contingency operations, which fund “temporary, extraordinary” requirements related to civilian-led efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Foreign Assistance Dashboard, a website that lets various development stakeholders explore and visualize data on U.S. foreign aid programs, has already posted the OCO funding request of the State Department and USAID for fiscal 2012, as well as the U.S. government’s total OCO costs.
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Senate hearing on March 11 that for the first time, State’s funding request for fiscal 2012 is divided into two parts: $47 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and $8.7 billion for overseas contingency operations.
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Apart from offering explanations and figures about OCO, the website now also includes data on State and USAID’s funding request for fiscal 2012, and updates to fiscal 2010 appropriation and supplemental data “to capture changes made throughout the year to the original appropriation allocations,” according to Wade Warren, director for the U.S. foreign assistance office at State.
“[W]e continue to be engaged in an interagency process to expand the site to incorporate budget, financial, program, and performance data in a standard form from all USG agencies receiving or implementing foreign assistance. More information on this process and its results will be posted on the website in a few weeks,” Warren said in a statement posted at the Professional Services Council.
Warren also said the website, which was launched in December, has a new mailing list feature that will allow users to receive information directly on future updates, and an upgraded charting software to make it compatible with iPads and iPhones.
Read more about U.S. development aid.
