You are viewing VERSION 1.02 of IATI Standard Reference View another version

This version is DEPRECATED, v2.03 is the latest version

Dates

This page is currently flagged for review. We are undertaking an update of the information we publish about the IATI Standard, and the content here has not yet been checked.

Dates and status

This section introduces the elements describing the milestone dates and status of an activity.

Milestone dates

The activity-date element contains a milestone date (past, present, or future) for the activity, as in the following example:

<activity-date type=”start-planned” iso-date=”2010-11-11”/>

The iso-date attribute gives the date in ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) format: this attribute is optional, but should be included whenever possible.

The type attribute describes the type of milestone date, from the IATI Activity Date code list.  Currently, the list includes the following values:

  • start-planned: the forecast starting implementation date for the activity.
  • start-actual: the actual starting implementation date for the activity, such as the date of first disbursement.
  • end-planned: the forecast ending implementation date for the activity.
  • end-actual: the actual ending implementation date for the activity, such as the date of final disbursement.

An IATI activity document may repeat the activity-date element once for each type of date (though the *-actual types make sense only after the dates have arrived).  Here is an excerpt from the report for a completed activity, including all four date types:

<iati-activity>

...

<activity-date type=”start-planned” iso-date=”2009-04-01”/>

<activity-date type=”start-actual” iso-date=”2009-04-18”/>

<activity-date type=”end-planned” iso-date=”2010-03-31”/>

<activity-date type=”end-actual” iso-date=”2010-03-15”/>

...

</iati-activity>

During early planning, it might not be possible to specify a precise date.  A project, for example, might be planned only vaguely for a future year: it is a goal of IATI to allow donors and other participants to provide information as early as possible, to assist with planning in partner countries.  As a result, the iati-activity element allows specifying imprecise dates using plain text in the content (optionally combined with the xml:lang attribute):


<activity-date type=”start-planned”

xml:lang=”en”>Late 2012 or early 2013</activity-date>

Note that an IATI activity document should use text instead of an ISO date only when it is not possible to provide a specific date; however, it is always allowed to include the text in addition to an ISO date, as in the following example, which specifies that the activity begins in the organization’s first financial quarter, on 1 April 2010::


<activity-date type=”start-planned”

iso-date=”2010-04-01”>2010 Q1</activity-date>