name: UNICEF Data API Rate Limits
description: >
  UNICEF does not publicly document formal rate limits for its Data Warehouse
  SDMX API, Reference Data Manager API, or GeoSight API. All APIs are provided
  as public goods intended for reasonable programmatic access by researchers,
  governments, NGOs, and developers. No burst limits, quota windows, or
  throttling thresholds are published in official documentation as of June 2026.
  Users should implement polite crawling practices and exponential backoff.
apis:
  - name: UNICEF SDMX Data Warehouse API
    base_url: https://sdmx.data.unicef.org/ws/public/sdmxapi/rest/
    authentication: None
    rate_limit_documented: false
    notes: >
      No published rate limits. The API is intended for broad public access
      including institutional and bulk use. SDMX responses can be large for
      broad multi-country, multi-indicator queries; use dimension filtering
      to reduce payload size. For very large bulk downloads, consider using
      the graphical explorer at sdmx.data.unicef.org to generate batch
      dataset files instead of repeated API calls.
  - name: UNICEF Reference Data Manager API
    base_url: https://rdmapi.unicef.org/api/
    authentication: None required for read
    rate_limit_documented: false
    notes: >
      No published rate limits. Reference data is relatively static and
      responses should be cached aggressively to minimize API calls.
  - name: UNICEF GeoSight API
    base_url: https://geosight.unicef.org/api/v1/
    authentication: None for public datasets; Django session auth for write
    rate_limit_documented: false
    notes: >
      No published rate limits for public data endpoints. Geospatial responses
      can be large; implement pagination and field filtering where supported.
best_practices:
  - Cache SDMX responses locally, as indicator data is updated infrequently
  - Use the format=csv parameter for lighter payloads on large queries
  - Filter dimensions explicitly to avoid fetching all observations
  - Implement exponential backoff on 429 or 503 responses
  - Avoid parallel bulk downloads; sequence large requests
  - Use the dataflow endpoint to discover available datasets before querying
  - Contact data@unicef.org for high-volume or institutional access inquiries