[kictanet] [Skunkworks] Examples Open Data in New York

Wed Jul 13 10:21:29 EAT 2011

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 at 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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