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World Bank suspends Doing Business report over errors in data

The “Doing Business” report has been a valued tool for countries seeking to measure the usual cost of running and to help improve the overall business climate

The World Bank Group has announced the suspension of its acclaimed Doing Business report, which assesses the business climate in nearly 200 countries. 

The decision, according to the World Bank, was driven by irregularities in data collected for the annual rankings.

“The publication of the Doing Business report will be paused as we conduct our assessment,” a World Bank statement said.

“A number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports, published in October 2017 and 2019. The changes in the data were inconsistent with the Doing Business methodology,” the Bank added.

Impartial integrity

The World Bank said the integrity and impartiality of its data and analysis is paramount and so it is taking immediate steps to correct the anomalies. 

“We are conducting a systematic review and assessment of data changes that occurred subsequent to the institutional data review process for the last five Doing Business reports.

“We have asked the World Bank Group’s independent internal audit function to perform an audit of the processes for data collection and review for Doing Business and the controls to safeguard data integrity,” the statement said.

Marked upticks for Togo and Nigeria

The Bank said: “We will act based on the findings and will retrospectively correct the data of countries that were most affected by the irregularities.

“The board of executive directors of the World Bank has been briefed on the situation as have the authorities of the countries that were most affected by the data irregularities.”

The latest report, published last year, ranked Togo and Nigeria among the ten countries that had shown the most improvement and collectively accounted for “one-fifth of all the reforms recorded worldwide”.

There are no reports that either countrys scores were tampered with.

Only two Sub-Saharan economies in the report – Mauritius and Rwanda – ranked among the world top 50.

Joseph Appiah-Dolphyne

Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online.
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