Analytics & dashboardsGovernment · Finance
Costa Rica's highway loan
A $10.7 million road loan: half the road built, most of the money paid back
$28,409repaid per kilometer actually built
Proof you can check:Public data
Analytics & dashboards
Half the road, 85% of the loan repaid
Promised640 km
Built322 km
$9.15 million repaid on a $10.7 million loan
Lubo Bali · lubobali.com
The problem
Development loans are judged by the money lent; an audit of what was delivered is rare. A country can repay in full for roads that were never built.
What I built
An SQL analysis of the World Bank's 1.4 million credit records that follows the spending of one loan from start to end: amount, money used, money repaid; then two World Bank reports for what was promised and what was built.
Tech & why
SQL for the money trail in the official data, and the original project reports for the kilometers the data doesn't hold.
- SQL
The result
The whole $10.7 million was spent, only 322 of the promised 640 km were built, and $9,148,225 was repaid over five decades: $28,409 for every kilometer that exists.
Data: World Bank IDA credits (Finances One) (public dataset).
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