HELP WANTED: Data expert wanted to help hapless journalist make sense of a World Bank “heat map” on sovereign debt.
VALUE: Many countries are not transparent about their national indebtedness (sovereign debt). The Bank for four years has measured this, concluding in 2021 that a “serious lack of debt transparency” exists. Notably, nearly 40 percent of the 74 Low-Income Developing Countries (LIDCs) studied had never published debt data or they had not updated their data in the last two years, according to the 2021 report.
WHY HELP IS NEEDED: After 2021, the Bank stopped publishing reports on its annual surveys. Instead, it issues a Debt Reporting Heat Map. But this is a color-coded chart, which seems to make trend analysis impossible, at least to Eye on Global Transparency, admittedly non-tech savvy.
WHAT EYE DID: After informal inquiries about the survey results were unsuccessful, EYE asked the Bank for the underlying data, the numerical scores corresponding to the four colors, utilizing the Bank’s Access to Information Policy. Such data should make analysis possible using standard Excel tools.
WHAT THE BANK SAID: No. Both initially and after EYE appealed.
WHY NOT? The Bank said all of its information had been released.
WAS THIS PLAUSIBLE? This seems unlikely for several reasons. First, Bank officials have claimed some progress on debt transparency, using summary figures likely derived from the survey. Second, there hints that numerical data exists. (If you click on tiny footnotes in the heat map, some worksheets can be downloaded describing the numerical scores. But, again, not in a format suitable for analysis.) Third, does the Bank really conduct annual surveys without analyzing the trends?
WHAT’S NEXT? It would be possible, with a lot of manual work, to create an Excel spreadsheet using the heat map, translating the colors into numerical scores for the 666 cells in each year’s survey. Multiplied by the four years the survey has been conducted: that would be 2,664 cells.
JOB DUTIES: Figure out a better way to convert the heat map’s red, orange, yellow and green into 1-2-3-4 on a spreadsheet.
COMPENSATION: Sorry, this will have to be pro bono. However, the resulting analysis will add to an understanding of debt transparency and be a small win for open data.
REPLY to EYE editor: Toby McIntosh — mcintosh.toby@gmail.com
