OECD Data

The OECD pulls together comparable statistics for its 38 member countries and a wide set of partner economies, covering national accounts, trade, jobs, education, health, tax, migration, and the environment. What you get is not just tables of numbers but the analytical reports the OECD is known for, so the figures arrive with context around them. For anyone working on aid and development, two collections stand out: the International Development Statistics, which track how much aid flows, where it comes from, and what type it is, and the Creditor Reporting System, which logs individual aid activities in fine detail.

The OECD Data Explorer on the website lets you browse and download any series, and the API serves the same data programmatically in SDMX, a shared format that statistical agencies use to move figures and their descriptions together. You can get CSV and JSON out of it, and because the metadata rides along you receive units, reference periods, and country codes instead of bare values. For RAG, flatten each indicator into short, self-describing sentences, one per country and year, so a retriever can line up a plain-language question with the right figure.

It is at its best when a system needs to answer cross-country economic or policy questions, or to ground development analysis in figures that hold up. The harmonisation is the selling point: the OECD defines a labour or education measure the same way everywhere, so comparisons across nations actually mean something, which is rare in official statistics.

The reuse terms are broadly permissive but ask for attribution, and the commercial position is not spelled out cleanly, so treat commercial use as unclear and confirm before you ship a paid product on it. Some series carried by the OECD originate with third parties under their own terms. Coverage leans towards wealthier economies, and headline numbers are revised, so store the release date with every value.

Pair it with World Bank Open Data and IMF Data for broader country coverage, and Eurostat when you want deeper European breakdowns.