ABOUT FTS & BASIC INFORMATION FOR FIELD OPERATIONS

ABOUT FTS

What is the Financial Tracking Service (FTS) and How to Use It?

What is FTS?

The Financial Tracking Service (FTS) is the central, continuously updated, fully downloadable public data source on global humanitarian funding flows. It brings together reporting from government donors, UN funds and agencies, NGOs and other humanitarian actors to provide:

a real-time picture of humanitarian funding across operations
progress against response plans and appeals, including sector breakdowns and funding gaps
visibility on who is funding what, where

All information published on FTS is reported directly through designated focal points in each organization, curated and verified by the FTS team, and then made available publicly. Funding may be inside or outside coordinated plans.

What types of humanitarian funding information does FTS include?

FTS shows funding reported as Pledges, Commitments, and Paid Contributions (as defined by the reporting organization).

Commitments and Paid contributions are counted in FTS totals (as they reflect signed agreements or completed transfers).
Pledges are recorded for follow-up and transparency, but not counted in totals until they become commitments or paid contributions.

FTS does not track planned contributions or public/media announcements unless verified through official focal points.

As public pledge announcements have increased globally, it is even more important to clearly distinguish pledges from actual committed or paid contributions.

Is FTS centralized or decentralized?

FTS is a centralized global service within the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) tools. The team is based in Istanbul and works collaboratively with field and HQ partners to ensure accuracy, consistency, and timeliness.

Most organizations report through officially designated focal points at HQ or regional level. Regardless of where information originates, FTS always verifies, triangulates, and validates before publishing.

Examples:

EU and EU Member States report directly to FTS.
WHO, UNFPA, WFP, UNHCR, and UNICEF use fully centralized HQ reporting.
FAO, IOM and UNDP use decentralized reporting, with country offices reporting directly.
NGOs vary — some report from HQ, others regionally.

How can humanitarian partners report to FTS?

To ensure accuracy, reports should include the minimum required fields — using the FTS Reporting Template found here in different languages or Report a contribution | Financial Tracking Service.

Who reports to FTS?

EU and EU Member States report directly through their designated representatives in Geneva, New York, field offices, or ministries in capitals.
UN Agencies, Funds and Programmes (UNAFPs) submit through centralized HQ reporting and decentralized reporting mechanisms.
NGOs (international, national and local) can report using the FTS standard template.
Private sector entities are encouraged to report both financial and in-kind contributions.
Affected Governments can also report their humanitarian contributions.
Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and Country-Based Pooled Funds (CBPFs) data are received via OneGMS and cross-checked against donor and agency reporting.

What happens to the information that is reported to FTS?

The information that is reported to FTS undergoes a curation process, verification and validation, and is then uploaded to the system with the final goal of informing humanitarian decision making. The standard time for processing varies according to the information submitted and depending on the quality of data provided. The diagram below summarizes the process.

What is the role of Cluster Lead Agencies (CLAs) in FTS?

At country level, Cluster Lead Agencies (CLAs) work with OCHA to confirm their cluster’s financial requirements and to monitor progress against those requirements on FTS. CLAs coordinate closely with cluster partners and with the OCHA country office to help verify and improve the accuracy of funding data reflected in FTS.

CLAs can also help identify and assign the correct cluster attribution for funding that is recorded against multiple clusters or is currently without a cluster tag. This enhances the overall granularity and quality of cluster-level data — and supports a clearer picture of funding gaps, priorities, and needs.

How can OCHA field offices support FTS?

OCHA field offices and the FTS team collaborate closely. In many operations, a designated country focal point supports the flow of information to and from the FTS. Field operations can support FTS by:

encouraging donors and partners to report through their official HQ FTS focal points to ensure accuracy and consistency
integrating basic FTS orientation/training into HPC refreshers, IM sessions and capacity building efforts
alerting FTS to any support needs, challenges or follow-up requirements

Field focal points are also key in helping identify possible data discrepancies, missing elements (for example sectoral breakdowns), or cluster attribution when funding appears across multiple clusters or unassigned.

Does FTS take field-level financial tracking into account?

Yes. FTS works with all stakeholders — including those at field level — to collect detailed, accurate funding information. It is common for FTS to receive multiple reports on the same contribution with different levels of detail. In these cases, the FTS team applies data curation and triangulation to produce one validated, non-overlapping entry.

Some operations maintain parallel internal funding spreadsheets. These can be helpful reference points for follow-up, but they are not automatically uploaded to FTS. Only information submitted through agreed focal points and meeting the FTS posting standard will be published. Differences between field-level records and FTS often stem from:

differences in ingestion/curation practice
unclear inclusion/exclusion of whether a contribution counts toward a plan
double counting

Using common HPC corporate standards — including FTS — improves coherence, transparency and comparability. FTS remains committed to using all credible information received, while ensuring it meets agreed validation standards before publishing publicly.

What are the current limitations of FTS?

FTS was built at a time when global humanitarian funding volumes were significantly smaller. Today the scale is much larger — in 2021 alone, FTS manually curated and processed over USD 30 billion in humanitarian funding.

Because demand and complexity have grown, FTS is undergoing a transformation process to stay fit for purpose. This includes:

a more user-friendly platform
improved tracking of multi-year and regional response plans
more timely sectoral funding information
better visibility on funding to national and local organizations
progressive automation to support timeliness while safeguarding validation/triangulation
improved alignment with IATI for transparency and interoperability

This transformation aims to strengthen business continuity and ensure FTS remains the most reliable global public system for humanitarian financial tracking.

When was FTS established?

FTS is managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). It was established in 1992 following General Assembly Resolution 46/182, which set the foundation for humanitarian coordination within the United Nations. FTS operates in support of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and the humanitarian programme cycle. Reporting policies and “what counts” criteria are collectively determined by the IASC.

The FTS team sits within the Partnerships Branch of OCHA’s Financing and Outreach Division and relocated to Istanbul, Türkiye in 2021.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR FIELD OPERATIONS

FTS 101 for OCHA Field Offices

What you need to know + how you support it

What is FTS?

The Financial Tracking Service (FTS) is the global public platform that tracks humanitarian funding flows. It provides a continuously updated picture of who is funding what, where, and how much — inside and outside coordinated plans — helping partners see progress, identify gaps and strengthen advocacy.

Why it matters in operations?

FTS is used heavily at all levels (field, regional, HQ) for coordination, donor engagement, response monitoring, advocacy and senior management briefings. Accurate data in FTS directly improves the credibility of messages coming from the field and the humanitarian system.

Your role in the field

OCHA field offices play a critical role in supporting accurate, timely FTS reporting. Field offices can support FTS by:

encouraging donors, agencies, NGOs and private sector actors to report through their designated FTS focal points (usually at HQ or region)
including FTS basics in HPC refreshers, IM orientation, donor briefing preparation and cluster coordination support
informing FTS when follow-up or curation support is needed
flagging discrepancies, unclear numbers, missing sector breakdowns or cluster attribution questions

A country-level focal point (where present) serves as the bridge with FTS — receiving, clarifying, and routing inquiries in both directions.

How FTS uses field-level information?

Field operations sometimes maintain local funding trackers or matrices. These can be useful references — however, only verified reporting through official FTS focal points are entered into FTS. If there are inconsistencies between field trackers and FTS, it is often due to differences in inclusion rules, curation methods or double counting.

FTS will always triangulate and verify before publishing, to make sure information is coherent and non-overlapping.

What is changing?

Humanitarian funding volumes have grown sharply, and FTS is evolving to meet this demand — improving usability, automation, visibility of multi-year and regional plans, and tracking of funding to national/local actors.

These improvements will make FTS easier to use — and even more relevant for field coordination and advocacy.

Bottom line for field offices:

Use FTS as the authoritative source of global humanitarian funding flows
Encourage partners to report to FTS
Help strengthen accuracy by flagging issues and gaps early
Integrate basic FTS orientation routinely in field-level coordination work

FTS works best when the field is actively engaged — and your role directly strengthens the quality, coherence and credibility of global humanitarian financial tracking.