Morten Jerven exposes the crisis of statistical capacity in many African nations, arguing that widely circulated data on GDP, growth, and development are often inaccurate, misleading or completely made up.

In this book, he traces the colonial roots of weak statistical infrastructures and the continued reliance on outdated or inconsistent methodologies. Jerven shows how poor data, used by donors, economists, and policymakers, skew planning and perpetuate misconceptions about African economies.

This work is a call to critically reassess the tools and assumptions of global development, and to invest in more contextually relevant, accountable, and locally led data systems.

This reference was recommended by the Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective.

The Collective is a space for critical dialogue, activism, and scholarship that foregrounds Pan-African Indigenist ways of knowing, being, and creating. Formed by members of the Bartlett community dedicated to uplifting the voices, knowledge, and cultural legacies of people of African heritage and their respective Indigenous communities and lands, it aims to challenge colonial legacies and inspire transformation within institutional structures, research and curricula. By integrating creative and scholarly practices, the Collective works to restore narratives that have been silenced or misrepresented. Their work advances decolonial efforts in higher education by creating inclusive spaces and centring diverse African knowledge systems. Bartlett Alternative recognises the Collective’s vital contribution to broadening intellectual and cultural horizons through radical inclusivity and exclusivity, and thanks them for sharing resources that foreground lived experience, land-based knowledge systems, and epistemic justice.

Department Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment