Aki, I think it'd be a great idea to include debt data in the open data initiative - the more transparency on that issue the better. This is very obvious, but actually not very easy to do: - Debt data are surprisingly difficult to get accurate, and the IMF (with probably the best outside access to such data), when engaging with a country, often spent a lot of time and effort trying to sort these out. You're dealing with different currencies, different terms, and debt is incurred on different levels - it can be incurred by government directly or by parastatals, for example. - Also, not everything the World Bank and other donors finance will necessarily have to be debt - some of it is, and some of it is a grant. Bilateral aid agencies often provide grants (which is, strictly speaking, where the term donor comes from - it's a donation). Some loans are tied to purchases from the lending country. That can be hardware, or consulting inputs. - So donors aren't responsible for all government debt, and similarly, you want to look out for funds that government borrows from non-donor sources on commercial terms - that's usually more expensive. - Classified information is more difficult to fit into this: security sector procurement, for example, is classified, and so that throws a cover over related borrowing as well - remember the rather costly AngloLeasing mess. - You need to compute the different debt write off initiatives. - Finally, look out for domestic debt. That's an increasingly large share in many African countries. Regarding the use of debt: No, I don't think it's a good idea to put each and every loan to a public vote and government should only play a ceremonial role. That's the whole point of democracy and having a government: It's elected to take care of national matters - including public finance management and national borrowing. President Kibaki was elected to appoint the finance minister, and the finance minister's role is to manage this. The new constitution includes clauses for devolution and I believe counties can borrow as well, so in principle, this will bring public finance decisions down a level. Have a good day, Andrea On 13 July 2011 08:23, aki <aki275@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Paul, thank you for the article.
I've been planning on building an annual statistics World Bank/Donor Community Loans performance site. It seems the Donor Community do not openly share data on the loans/amounts given to Kenya, which I believe should be mandatory disclosure and will compliment the Open Data Initiative. So far the World Bank ( http://maps.worldbank.org/afr/kenya ) has a somewhat decent site though lacking in specific details of all the loans e.g. for various projects in Kenya. The site gives a very basic brief for various amounts allocated for projects. However, further basic analysis shows that there are some clarifications needed, such as this project :
- P122163 : Extending Mobile Applications in Africa through Social Networking - Kenya (Akirchix) : Amount : Close to Ksh 40million. ( 0.49million USD )
- Further info on P122163 : http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?Projectid=P122163&theSitePK=356509&piPK=64290415&pagePK=64283627&menuPK=64282134&Type=Overview
On the other list Akirachix kindly responded and wrote back to my query that they have no knowledge of these funds nor have access to them, so I find the data listed on the World Bank site very inaccurate and not useable.
*Questions :*
1) How is the Open Data Initiative going to address the data release of all Loans and Disbursements use? Are these datasets going to be available?
2) And this question is for the listers, How can we propose that the next govts will only play a ceremonial and caretaker role in World Bank & Donor Funds where the people are able to choose allocation of these funds? For example, shall we hand over requests and allocation responsibilty to Parliament that shall decide on what Citizens want? Shall we finally have a say that parts of Kenya are in more need of such funds more than some of the various projects? Shall we design a national system that collects inputs from all kenyans across the country, compiles the data and provides information for the development of the country?
Just sharing some thoughts and thanks again for your time.
Rgds.
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