Debt is the entire stock of direct government fixed-term contractual obligations to others outstanding on
a particular date. It includes domestic and foreign liabilities such as currency and money deposits,
securities other than shares, and loans. It is the gross amount of government liabilities reduced by the
amount of equity and financial derivatives held by the government. Because debt is a stock rather than a
flow, it is measured as of a given date, usually the last day of the fiscal year.
Source: International Monetary Fund, Government Finance Statistics Yearbook and data files, and World
Bank and OECD GDP estimates.
data.worldbank
Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations; and military space activities. Such expenditures include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; military research and development; and military aid (in the military expenditures of the donor country). Excluded are civil defense and current expenditures for previous military activities, such as for veterans benefits, demobilization, conversion, and destruction of weapons. This definition cannot be applied for all countries, however, since that would require much more detailed information than is available about what is included in military budgets and off-budget military expenditure items.
Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute ( SIPRI ), Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security.
data.worldbank
General government expenditure on education (current, capital, and transfers) is expressed as a
percentage of GDP. It includes expenditure funded by transfers from international sources to government.
General government usually refers to local, regional and central governments.
The percentage of government expenditure on education to GDP is useful to compare education expenditure
between countries and/or over time in relation to the size of their economy; A high percentage to GDP
suggests a high priority for education and a capacity of raising revenues for public spending.
Note that government expenditure appears lower in some countries where the private sector and/or
households have a large share in total funding for education.
Source: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO )
Institute for Statistics.
data.worldbank
Domestic credit to private sector by banks refers to financial resources provided to the private sector
by other depository corporations (deposit taking corporations except central banks), such as through loans,
purchases of nonequity securities, and trade credits and other accounts receivable, that establish a
claim for repayment. For some countries these claims include credit to public enterprises.
Source: International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics and data files,
and World Bank and OECD GDP estimates.
data.worldbank
Total external debt stocks to gross national income. Total external debt is debt owed to nonresidents
repayable in currency, goods, or services. Total external debt is the sum of public, publicly
guaranteed, and private nonguaranteed long-term debt, use of IMF credit, and short-term debt.
Short-term debt includes all debt having an original maturity of one year or less and interest
in arrears on long-term debt. GNI (formerly GNP) is the sum of value added by all resident
producers plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus
net receipts of primary income (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad.
Source: World Bank, International Debt Statistics.
data.worldbank
Short-term debt includes all debt having an original maturity of one year or less and interest
in arrears on long-term debt. Total external debt is debt owed to nonresidents repayable in
currency, goods, or services. Total external debt is the sum of public, publicly guaranteed,
and private nonguaranteed long-term debt, use of IMF credit, and short-term debt.
Source: World Bank, International Debt Statistics.
data.worldbank
Figures on debt often miss the point entirely. When talking about a country’s ‘debt’, newspapers refer to just the debt owed by its government. But this includes debts which are owed to citizens of that country (not necessarily a problem). And it ignores the debt owed by private companies and banks (which can be a problem). No single figure can capture all the issues with debt across the world.
The World Bank’s Major Contract Awards dataset, which serves as a guide on the distribution of major contract commitments among the Bank’s member countries.
DebtHub is a web app developed by the department of Critical Mapping
with the cooperation of the Debt department in ODG organization. The aim of the project is to provide a
tool to consult and visualize debt data pulled out from the World Bank databases repositories, focusing
to get a better understanding of the debt situation of the world economies.
By hoovering the mouse around, the countries get highlighted and the info panel (top-right side) updated
with background information and World Developement Indicators.
By clicking on a country, the chart updates with the Central Governement Debt, the Government Expenditure
on Education and the Health Expenditure (all being a % of the GDP). The series of data can be checked and
unchecked and ca be only displayed the indicators desired. Plus, the data can be exported as a chart
image (png, pdf, jpeg, svg) or the raw data as a table (csv, xls).
The Debt Observatory in Globalisation (ODG) is a team of people who elaborate
critical analysis of complex and/or structural processes to show the visible (and not visible) impacts
and risks of the capitalist and patriarchal system, producing tools that facilitate interpretation of
the current context.
They produce critical analysis for mobilization and social transformation in the face
of social, economic, environmental and gender inequalities, while working on political incidence and the
denunciation of the political and economic actors that are identified as responsible.
The ODG is also an open platform for participation, debate and action, which promotes the creation of networks and spaces
for the construction of alternatives that strengthen popular sovereignties and the empowerment of
communities.