Publication

This paper reviews primary school enrollment and vaccination rates data from a large sample of countries to examine the reasons behind the discrepancies between official administrative data and independent household survey data in African countries. The authors find two distinct explanations: 1) governments misreport to foreign donors, and 2) national governments are misled by frontline service providers, in both cases overestimating the development results. To counter this, the authors highlight the need to make data systems incentives and funding rules more compatible.