World Bank halts Doing Business report to fix data irregularities

The World Bank says it has paused the publication of its annual Doing Business report because it has discovered cases of data manipulation by some countries.

The Doing Business report ranks countries based on their business regulations and the ease of access to the infrastructure needed to keep businesses running.

In a statement on Thursday, the World Bank said irregularities were discovered in the 2018 and 2020 editions of the report.

The Bretton Wood institution said the data of countries found to be most affected by the irregularities will be corrected adding the authorities from these countries have been briefed on the situation.

“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 statement read.

“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.”