The international development community has a data problem.
The vast majority of information on progress toward Millennium Development Goals is either missing or based on estimates. Botswana is often cited as an example of this, as its poverty figures are derived from data collected in 1993. In other instances, official data differ largely from surveys conducted independently.
In some cases, the most basic kind of information is missing. Only a quarter of South Asian countries, less than half of Latin American and Caribbean countries, and 6 percent of sub-Saharan African countries have complete civil registration systems. Registration of births and deaths has stalled globally. Afghanistan’s last national population census was conducted in 1979; the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s was in 1984.