By Babajide Komolafe & Emma Ujah, Washington DC

Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Inter Parliamentary  and Senator for the Ondo South district, has called on the World Bank to refocus its efforts on establishing an African Data Bank

Speaking at the  World Bank/IMF Parliamentary meeting held on the sidelines of the ongoing Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C., Senator Ibrahim stressed the critical role of data in the future economic development of the continent.

During the session Senator Ibrahim voiced his concerns about the lack of comprehensive data in Africa.

Responding to Senator Ibrahim’s points, Norman Loayza,

Director of the Global Indicators Group, World Bank indicated that the Bank acknowledges this concern and is undertaking new initiatives with the Office of the World Bank statistician to address it, including the upcoming launch of training programmes on statistics.

However, Senator Ibrahim insisted that the World Bank should actively support the establishment of a Federal Data Bank led by Nigerian initiatives.

Senator Ibrahim emphatically stated that data is the bedrock upon which new African economic development will be built.

He argued that without data, it is impossible to effectively tackle crime or implement government policies aimed at poverty reduction.

He highlighted the necessity of various types of data, including population data for identity management, currency data for central bank planning, and electoral data for understanding public participation.

“Every sector of the economy requires data, and if action is not taken now, in five years, it will be impossible to run any government without data,”Ibrahim warned.

Furthermore, Senator Ibrahim asserted that external assistance to Africa is futile without robust data infrastructure.

 He cautioned the IMF against making economic projections without empirical data and criticised the current practice of relying on sample surveys that represent less than 1% of the population to inform loan decisions.

“Can any country develop without a data bank? Why are you not insisting on one, and how are you obtaining your projected African economic outlook without country data?” he questioned.

He urged the IMF to be “fair to Africa” and advocated for the IMF to only provide loans to African countries that have a data bank.

Senator Ibrahim announced that the Nigerian Government is set to take a leading role in this area with the impending passage of the Data Bank bill into law, which will make everyone a stakeholder in the new Data Bank. He urged the World Bank to support the Nigerian federal data bank once the bill is enacted. He also suggested that African nations should invest 15% of their budget in technology-powered data for the next ten years, emphasizing that development is “impossible without data”.