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Data

Description​

These downloads accompany the African Debt Database (ADD), which supersedes and substantially extends the earlier Africa Debt Database by Mihalyi and Trebesch (2023), a granular but external-debt-only compilation of ~7,000 African loans and bonds issued during 2000–2020 (USD 790 bn). ADD covers both external and domestic sovereign debt and is built from primary documents (bond prospectuses, auction results, loan reports), with external debt coded for all 54 countries and domestic debt coverage for 51 (granular series for 43; 8 countries have no domestic securities issuance: Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Guinea, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan). In both scope and time, ADD is roughly five times larger than the 2023 database and comes closest to a continent-wide “sovereign debt census.”, to the best of our knowledge.

Latest release

Last update: 2025-Nov-27

Release notes

Version 2025Nov-a on 2025-11-272025Nov release
Released: 2025-11-27

Highlights

  • Added missing information for several countries.
  • Addressed data quality issues collected over the past month.

Next steps

  • Publish aggregated variant(s) of database once finalized.
  • Enable direct API access.
Version 2025Oct-a on 2025-10-05Initial release
Released: 2025-10-05

Highlights

  • First release of the African Debt Database at granular instrument level.

Next steps

  • Publish aggregated variant(s) of database once finalized.
  • Enable direct API access.

Remark​

Cite the paper: If you use the ADD dataset, please cite Manger, M. S., D. Mihalyi, U. Panizza, N. Rescia, C. Trebesch, and K. L. Wong (2025). Africa’s domestic debt boom: Evidence from the african debt database. CEPR Discussion Paper 20747, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). See /paper for BibTex.

Questions or contribution: info@africandebtdatabase.com.