Introduction

Financial Tracking Service (FTS) – Tracking Global Humanitarian Aid Flows

The FTS is a web-based searchable database of humanitarian requirements and contributions. It is a unique service provided by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as it is the only system in the world that provides information on global humanitarian aid flows in real- time. It serves to analyse aid and monitor accountability among humanitarian actors, by clearly indicating to what extent a certain population receives humanitarian relief aid, and in what proportion to needs. The FTS offers a series of standard tables that show humanitarian aid flows in various formats, and also allows users to produce custom financial tables on demand.

It is located on http://ftsarchive.unocha.org

The main FTS features:

•	Tracking of contributions for total humanitarian assistance (as reported to OCHA), including cash and in-kind contributions to Consolidated and Flash Appeals, bilateral aid, Natural Disaster Response, and other humanitarian assistance.
•	Tables, updated daily, with breakdown of contributions vs. requirements by donor, country, appealing organisation, and sector/cluster. The tables can be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) and Microsoft Excel (*.xls) formats.
•	On-line contributions reporting and online donations.
•	Searchable database allowing users to build custom tables export the data into Excel format. Users can also save their queries and subscribe to RSS or XML feeds.
•	Quick search tools to look at funding trends by donor.
•	Special focus on natural disasters and global funding trends.
•	Global overview page with reports by donor, appealing organization, sector, and appeals.

What does FTS allow you to do?

•	Monitor the funding status of any emergency or appeal. Detailed reports show funding by cluster, organisation, project, priority, location, etc.
•	Monitor humanitarian funding outside the appeala, identify donors and implementing organizations for activities not included in the appeal who need to be brought into the process and the cluster.
•	FTS differentiates uncommitted pledges from committed funding, so that you can follow up with donors that have outstanding pledges.
•	Donor profiles provide quick overviews of humanitarian funding by any given donor to a specific country or globally.
•	Analyze funding trends – FTS shows the history of funding to any country, as well as global trends by donor, sector, emergency or recipient agency.
•	FTS facilitates advocacy efforts by identifying areas with the greatest resource needs, highlighting neglected emergencies, under-funded organizations, clusters, and locations in country.
•	FTS allows us to keep messages consistent by allowing everyone to refer to one set of figures.
•	FTS helps you to better target your fundraising efforts: See which donors are funding what and analyse donor funding trends.
•	FTS helps to improve coordination by offering information at a glance on which implementing organizations and donors are working in which emergencies, sectors, and locations, and to what scale.
•	FTS provides visibility to humanitarian donors and to organizations that participate in the consolidated appeals process.
•	Finally, FTS allows you to save staff time by providing information and analysis at your fingertips.

Users can:

•	Report contributions through the online reporting form and make donations online.
•	Inform FTS of errors or omissions. Email us at: fts@un.org.

Scope of tracking

FTS tracks global humanitarian aid flows to complex emergencies and natural disasters. Data on humanitarian aid for natural disasters are available via the "Natural Disaster" link at the left of the home page. Data on humanitarian aid for other non-complex situations are accessed via the search tool or the country pages.

FTS data is based on reports from donors and recipient organization.