Where every number comes from

For the Treasury bill datasets and the Sovereign Bill Index, the full citation record — definitions market by market, stable URLs, the timeliness log and the corrections log — is on the reference page.

The rule

A number appears on Afronomics only when a publisher has printed it. If the publisher has no value for a country, the cell is blank and says so. We never estimate, interpolate or let a language model write a figure.

Sources

The 22 tracked series

• GDP (current US$) — Economy · NY.GDP.MKTP.CD
• Real GDP growth (annual %) — Economy · NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
• GDP per capita (current US$) — Economy · NY.GDP.PCAP.CD
• Inflation, consumer prices (annual %) — Economy · FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG
• Unemployment (% of labour force, ILO modelled) — Economy · SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS
• Population, total — Economy · SP.POP.TOTL
• Agriculture, forestry and fishing (% of GDP) — Economy · NV.AGR.TOTL.ZS
• Central government debt (% of GDP) — Debt, rates and money · GC.DOD.TOTL.GD.ZS
• External debt stocks (% of GNI) — Debt, rates and money · DT.DOD.DECT.GN.ZS
• Total debt service (% of exports and primary income) — Debt, rates and money · DT.TDS.DECT.EX.ZS
• Total reserves (months of imports) — Debt, rates and money · FI.RES.TOTL.MO
• Lending interest rate (%) — Debt, rates and money · FR.INR.LEND
• Domestic credit to private sector (% of GDP) — Debt, rates and money · FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS
• Official exchange rate (LCU per US$, period average) — Debt, rates and money · PA.NUS.FCRF
• Foreign direct investment, net inflows (US$) — Capital flows · BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD
• Personal remittances received (US$) — Capital flows · BX.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT
• Exports of goods and services (% of GDP) — Trade · NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS
• Current account balance (% of GDP) — Trade · BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS
• Individuals using the internet (% of population) — Technology · IT.NET.USER.ZS
• Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people) — Technology · IT.CEL.SETS.P2
• Access to electricity (% of population) — Climate and energy · EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS
• Renewable energy consumption (% of final energy) — Climate and energy · EG.FEC.RNEW.ZS

Rankings and comparisons

Rankings use each country’s latest print from the last three years, so a country is not dropped because its statistics office is a year behind. The year of every value is shown; an older print carries a small ’YY mark. Continental totals are summed only for the year in which at least 90% of the best-covered year’s countries reported, and the number of reporting countries is printed next to the total. “Movers” compare a country’s latest annual value with the year immediately before it.

Currencies

The live reference is a mid-market rate for comparison, not a dealing rate or a central-bank fixing. The annual figure is the official period average reported to the World Bank. Where a parallel market exists, it can differ materially from both.

Development finance

Commitments are IBRD and IDA amounts as the World Bank publishes them; co-financing is not included. Pipeline projects carry the Bank’s expected Board date, which moves. Themes are assigned from each project’s title and abstract and are a guide, not the Bank’s own sector coding.

Headlines

The Wire shows a publisher’s headline, a short excerpt from its feed, and a link to the original article. We tag countries and desks automatically from the text; tags can be wrong and are corrected on request. Publishers can ask to join or leave the Wire at desk@afronomicsfeed.com.

Analysis

Briefs are labelled Facts, Analysis or Opinion, cite their primary documents with dates, and carry an as-of stamp. We do not give buy, sell or hold recommendations.

Corrections

If a figure, date or tag is wrong, tell us and we fix it and log it publicly on the corrections page.

Reusing our data

Every series can be downloaded as CSV from its data page. Cite it as “Source: Afronomics, compiled from [publisher]”. The underlying World Bank data is licensed CC BY 4.0.