What is the IATI Datastore?
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The IATI Datastore is an online service that gathers all data published to the IATI standard into a single queryable database that can deliver selections of data to developers in JSON or XML formats, or non-technical users in CSV (spreadsheet) format.

When an organisation publishes its data in `IATI-XML format <http://iatistandard.org/>`__, it does so on its own website – often in separate files for each country or region – and indexes information about these files (what they contain, when they were last updated, etc) on the `IATI Registry <http://iatiregistry.org/>`__. The Registry is only a catalogue of all publishers and published files with links to the actual data.

If you are looking specifically, say, for information on World Bank activities in Angola, the Registry can help you: it will display an `index record <http://iatiregistry.org/dataset/worldbank-ao>`__ (created by the World Bank itself) that will tell you how many activities have been reported and when the data was last updated. It will give you `information about the organisation’s policies <http://iatiregistry.org/publisher/worldbank>`__ and consideration when publishing IATI data. It also has a Download button that allows you to `access the data <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/IATI/WB-AO.xml>`__ directly from the World Bank’s website.

But what if your query is more complex? If you want, say, to look at information from all publishers concerning activities in a particular sector in a particular time period, you have a huge job on your hands if the Registry is your only source.