African Successes

Macro Data

African Economic Outlook 2007

An African Development Bank, OECD Development Centre, and Economic Commission for Africa joint project Good, current country reports

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Data and Statistics

Global data (see especially World Economic Outlook Database, updated twice a year)
IMF financial data
Exchange rates data

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

PRSPs describe the country's macroeconomic, structural, and social policies and programs over a three year or longer horizon to promote broad-based growth and reduce poverty, as well as associated external financing needs and major sources of financing Updated every three years with annual progress reports

World Bank datasets on macroeconomics and growth

Economic growth datasets
Institutions and governance datasets
Macroeconomic policies datasets
Investment climate datasets

Industry Data

Finance and Private Sector Research

World Bank datasets on finance and private sector research

Database on entrepreneurship
Public credit registries survey dataset
Reaching out: Access to and use of banking services across countries
Small and medium enterprises: Overcoming growth constraints
Deposit insurance around the world
New database on financial development and structure (updated 2007)
Bank regulation and supervision database
Episodes of systemic and borderline financial crises
Bank concentration and crisis

International Trade Data

World Bank trade research

World Trade Indicators (WTI)
Global monitoring report 2008 - trade restrictiveness indices
Trade policy data and import barriers
Trade, production, and protection database
Technical barriers to trade (TBT) database
Global antidumping database
WTO dispute settlement database
Innovation and development around the world dataset

Sustainable Rural and Urban Development

World Bank datasets on sustainable rural and urban development

Air pollution in world cities
Cross-country database for sector investment and capital
Air pollution in major cities
Infrastructure economic performance
International Road Federation: World road statistics
IPPS pollution density and abatement costs datasets
Investing in infrastructure
ToxInt: the toxic intensities database

Conflict

World Bank datasets on the economics of civil war, crime, and violence

Partition as a solution to ethnic war
International peacebuilding: a theoretical and quantitative analysis
Armed conflict 1946-2001

Individual Data

Afrobarometer

Comparative series of national public attitude surveys on democracy, markets, and civil society in Africa

World Bank datasets on poverty

ADePT: Stata Software Platform for Automated Economic Analysis
Decomposing world income distribution database
Household surveys: Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS)
PovcalNet: interactive computational tool to replicate the calculations made by the World Bank's researchers in estimating the extent of absolute poverty in the world
Poverty Mapping Program

Human Development and Public Services

Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI)

International ranking of 125 developing and transitional economy countries
Evaluates the political and economic status of each country as well as the political management performance by the relevant actors
Detailed country reports provide information on the underlying factors of assessment for each country examined

Global Integrity

Independent, nonprofit organization that tracks governance and corruption trends around the world
Works with local teams of researchers and journalists to monitor openness and accountability

Ibrahim Index of African Governance, 2007

Developed under the direction of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government with the help of an advisory council of African academics
Based on five categories of essential political goods, each of Africa's 48 countries is assessed against 58 individual measures
To be published annually; data missing from other datasets is currently being collected

International Budget Project's Open Budget Index (OBI), 2006

First ever budget transparency country rankings (59 countries): see downloadable database and reference material
Provides information needed to gauge a government's commitment to transparency and accountability
Excellent link to "useful tools for research on budget transparency and accountability"

UNECA African Governance Report

Underlying datasets for each country may be available and country coverage is increasing

UNESCO Data Center

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) collects the data for more than 200 countries from member states and international organizations
Contains over 1,000 types of indicators and raw data on education, literacy, science and technology, culture and communication

World Bank datasets on Human Development and Public Services Research

Epidemiological impact of HIV/AIDS vaccine in developing countries
Composition of public expenditures and economic growth
What does aid to Africa finance?
Nigeria: Decentralized service delivery survey (health)
Educational attainment and enrollment around the world
Survey tools: Quantitative Service Delivery Surveys (QSDS) (health and education)
Survey tools: Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS)

World Governance Assessment (WGA): Assessing Governance Dataset

Worldwide Governance Indicators Project (WDI): Governance Matters 2007

Aggregate and individual governance indicators for 212 countries and territories over the period 1996-2006 for six dimensions of governance (voice and accountability; political stability and absence of violence; government effectiveness; regulatory quality; rule of law; control of corruption)
The country data reports cite a number of sources; the country reports for sub-Saharan Africa are here.

Demographic and Vital Statistics

Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)

Data on population, health, HIV, and nutrition through more than 200 surveys in over 75 countries

Minnesota Integrated Public Use Microdata Series International

Census microdata for social and economic research

World Health Organization (WHO) Data and Statistics

WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS): national statistics for 50 core indicators on mortality, morbidity, risk factors, service coverage, and health systems
WHO Global InfoBase Online: data on chronic diseases and their risk factors for all WHO Member States
Global Health Atlas: Standardized data and statistics for infectious diseases at country, regional, and global levels
Regional statistics: statistical information from WHO Regional Offices. The Africa Region stats are here

International Migration

World Bank datasets on international migration and development

Measuring brain drain by gender
Medical brain drain
Brain drain with age of entry
Brain drain database
Global migrant origin database

Social Science Data Portals

Harvard-MIT Virtual Data Center Network

Excellent source for social sciences (including and beyond economics); keyword searchable
Holds the World Value Surveys, among other things
Login at top right

Internet Crossroads for resources related to social science data

Data depository at the University of Wisconsin Madison
Links to 825 data-related resources in 26 subject areas
Includes statistical offices of several smaller countries and organizations

UCLA Institute for Social Science Research: Data Archives Home

Wealth of social science surveys, including several from Africa

Other Data

African Development Bank (AfDB) Economic and Social Statistics Division

Gender, Poverty, and Environmental Indicators on African Countries 2007
Selected Statistics on African Countries 2007
Compendium of Statistics on Bank Group Operations 2007
The ADB Statistics Pocketbook 2007

United Nations Statistics Division

Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE)
Monthly Bulletin of Statistics Online (MBS Online)
Census Knowledge Base
Common Database (UNCDB)
Demographic Yearbook system
Distat, the United Nations Disability Statistics Database
Good practices database
InfoNation
Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI)
Millennium Indicators Database
National Accounts Main Aggregates Database
Population of capital cities and cities of 100,000 and more inhabitants
Population and housing censuses: census dates
Population and Vital Statistics on Internet
Service Trade Statistics
Social Indicators
Statistics and indicators on women and men

World Bank data and statistics portal

World Development Indicators (WDI)
Atlas of Millennium Development Goals
Global Development Finance - summary and country tables
IDA14 Result Management System
Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics
International Comparison Program
Millennium Development Goals
Statistical Capacity Building

This page is a work in progress. Suggestions of links to add are very welcome. Please send them to Elisa Pepe.