FAQ

Online since 25th of April 2016, the Arab Development Portal (ADP) is an initiative of the Arab Coordination Group (ACG), which comprises ten national, regional and international development institutions, in collaboration with the United Nations’ Development Programme (UNDP).

Effective January 1st, 2023, seven of the members of the ACG agreed to pass on the responsibility of maintaining and operating the Portal from the UNDP to the Arab Fund, one of the members of the ACG, and to share in covering such cost for the period 2023-2025.

The initiative aims to enhance the knowledge of people on development in the Arab region. Data and knowledge resources on development issues in the Arab World are often outdated, of irregular reliability, and fragmented across multiple international, regional and local sources. By having access to and effectively using knowledge resources, individuals, firms and communities can improve their individual and collective well-being, thereby contributing to sustainable development.

ADP is a comprehensive, bilingual one-stop-shop knowledge resource that aims to (1) improve the scope, depth, reliability and availability of high-quality development knowledge through providing access to credible data produced by international and regional organizations, as well as national statistical offices, (2) serve as a research and knowledge repository for knowledge producers and users, and (3) act as an interactive knowledge platform for communities and interest groups.

The members of the Arab Coordination Group are the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (Arab Fund), the Arab Gulf Program for Development (AGFUND), the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (Kuwait Fund), the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), the Qatar Development Fund, the Saudi Fund for Development (Saudi Fund).

The Arab Development Portal (ADP) provides all users with easy access to an interactive database, publications depository, learning tools and news on development issues in Arab countries. The ADP also offers quick access to thematic and country overviews and statistical snapshots that are based on latest available data. The ADP Blog hosts web commentaries from regional and international experts and other contributors.

The Arab Development Portal (ADP) aims to provide all users with easy access to an interactive database on development issues in Arab countries. The ADP database has been built on data published by national statistical offices of Arab countries and other governmental agencies, in addition to international organizations. Depending on data availability, it offers recent data (1990 onward) on fifteen thematic topics.

Users can easily access statistics either published by national sources or international organizations. The ADP advises users interested in a specific country to opt for the national source as it displays official statistics published by the respective country. While it advises users interested in conducting comparative analysis or looking for data on more than one country, to select data listed under international source. The dataset of the latter is based on the same methodology and ensures that consistent analysis can be conducted. With regard to indicators collected from national sources, the ADP introduced minimal interference and has only contributed, when applicable, to unifying the terminology across the indicators. The ADP database is not exhaustive and encourages users to check the websites of the original sources for the complete list of indicators. For more info, please check ADP Data Catalogue.

The ADP data portal allows users either to visualize or export data using advanced tools for data browsing, extraction, and visualization. For a detailed explanation about how to use the ADP data portal, please check the help button in the database.

Currently, the ADP provides knowledge resources on fifteen topics: Banking and Finance, Demography, Education, Energy, Environment, Gender, Governance, ICT, Labor and Employment, Macroeconomy, Poverty, Health, Trade, Water and Food Security and Youth.

The ADP is in continuous discussion with various stakeholders and partners to add new topics depending on priorities and interests of the widest base of users.

In general, data is updated on a bi-annual basis, unless major changes are introduced to official datasets published by national statistical offices or other governmental agencies. The ADP database clearly states the last updated date for each indicator.

Given the present scope of the ADP, it does not produce data on its own. What it does is that it publishes a selective list of indicators originally published by either international development agencies or national statistical offices. The value-added of the ADP is it publishes the indicators in a format (visualization, excel) that can be easily shared and used by everyone, allowing users to save time copying data from static pdf files. In short, the ADP acts as a centralized platform for data published on Arab countries.For more info, please check ADP Data Catalogue.

The Arab Development Portal targets a diverse base of end-users interested in development issues and the Arab region. It adheres to knowledge-seekers, namely development practitioners, researchers, academics, students, policy-makers, development agencies, journalists, etc.

No, the Data Visualization and Data Export operate on all browsers.

You can share information from ADP website to any social media platform or to any email, by using the share buttons that are found on the website.