The OECD-DAC uses a set of markers (the “Rio Markers”) to track to what extent the development finance recorded in the DAC’s Creditor Reporting System (CRS) supports the objectives of the UN Environmental Conventions (so-called “Rio Conventions”). Rio markers data is available since 2000 for climate change mitigation (as well as for biodiversity and desertification), and since 2009 for climate change adaptation.
Rio markers are mandatory reporting items for DAC members’ ODA activities, while reporting on Other Official Flows (OOFs, composed of non-concessional or non-developmental flows) is voluntary. Other bilateral donors or multilateral institutions can also report the Rio markers on the activities submitted to the CRS, on a voluntary basis. Multilateral climate funds typically do so, while MDBs rely on their own methodology (see Annex A above)
The Rio markers methodology tracks to what extent climate objectives are integrated into development co-operation portfolios, through a three-tier scoring system:
Principal (score 2) when the objective (climate change mitigation or adaptation) is explicitly stated as fundamental in the design of, or the motivation for, the activity.
Significant (score 1) when the objective (climate change mitigation or adaptation) is explicitly stated but it is not the fundamental driver or motivation for undertaking it.
Not targeted (score 0) meaning that the activity was examined but found not to target the objective (climate change mitigation or adaptation) in any significant way.
The Rio markers apply to activities as a whole, i.e. the score given applies to all components of an activity, some of which may be more climate-related than others. The markers do not track the exact amount of climate finance, rather they track to what extent development finance integrates climate as a principal or as a significant objective of the activities recorded (so to what extent development finance is related to climate). For this reason, the markers are considered descriptive rather than strictly quantitative measure.
Climate-related development finance data collected by the DAC fully adhere to the CRS reporting standards, with over fifty information fields for each activity collected, such as provider, recipient, commitments, disbursements, channel, sector, development co-operation modality, other policy markers (such as gender equality) and voluntary fields (such as the SDG focus). The methodology adopted for the data collection is included in the CRS-Statistical directives, available online. The OECD-DAC Secretariat performs quality checks on the data received. The data are published yearly in a homogeneous format.