Compare¶

Compare sets two or three countries, or two or three development partners, next to each other across every measure they report.

Use it when you have a specific comparison in mind. If you want to read one country or partner in full, the Deep Dive is the better starting point.

Setting up a comparison¶

1. Choose whether you are comparing partner countries or development partners.
2. Pick two from the dropdowns. A third slot appears once you have two.
3. Narrow the lists with the filters if it helps — countries by income group or region, partners by organisation type.

Nothing is shown until two are chosen, because there is nothing to compare.

What you get¶

Dimension summary. How each one scores on the four dimensions, so you can see the broad shape of the differences before going into detail. A dashed outline shows the comparison group average.

Every measure, side by side. A table with one row per indicator, grouped by dimension, and one column per country or partner. Each cell carries the score and its colour band, so you can scan down for the rows where they diverge.

Measures reported as words — the PFM trend, gender budgeting, accountability mechanisms, transparency ratings — appear as their labels rather than percentages, in the same colours used elsewhere.

Where one has a result and the other does not, the empty cell shows a dash. That means nothing was reported, not a score of zero.

Choosing what to compare against¶

For partner countries you can set the comparison group: an income group, a region, or a shared characteristic such as least-developed country status. The group average is then drawn alongside so you can see whether a difference between two countries is unusual or typical for the group.

For development partners the comparison group follows the partner — DAC members, multilateral partners or United Nations entities — and is the same grouping used everywhere else in the portal.

Common questions¶

Why can I only compare three at once? Beyond three, a side-by-side table stops being readable and a chart becomes a tangle. For patterns across many countries or partners, the map is the better tool.

Why are some rows empty for one country but not the other? Reporting differs. A country without a national development strategy does not report the measures about preparing one; a partner outside the DAC has no untied aid figure. An empty cell reflects what was reported, not a poor result.

Can I compare a country with a development partner? No. They are measured on different things: a country's results describe its own systems and processes, a partner's describe its practice across the countries it works in. Setting one against the other would compare two different questions.

Why does a transparency rating show as a word rather than a percentage? Those ratings are ordinal assessments produced outside the Global Partnership, and the methodology states they are not directly comparable to one another. They are shown as the grades they are.

Where does the group average come from? It is published in the Global Database maintained by the GPEDC Joint Support Team. For measures based on money it is weighted by financial volume rather than treating every reporter equally — see How the numbers are calculated.