Useful sources about Africa

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study provides comparative data on student learning in reading. It is conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. It has assessed reading comprehension in over 60 countries since 2001.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa's website provides the most recent number of registered voters, also organised by male and female.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa publishes the results of previous national and municipal elections by province, ward, municipality, voting district and voting station. Users can download the reports in PDF and Excel format.

The South African Cities Network regularly publishes its State of South African Cities Report. The reports provide a basis for more functional urban environments.

Guns, poison and horns: Organised wildlife crime in Southern Africa, a report by the ENACT project, aims to systematically record instances of cross-border organised crime in Africa. The pilot phase focused on wildlife crime and covered 10 countries in the southern African region from 2000 to 2016.

Two geographic information system (GIS) inventories of protected and conservation areas in South Africa: the South African Protected Areas Database (SAPAD) and the South African Conservation Areas Database (SACAD). They include data on privately owned protected and conservation areas.

The South African Child Gauge is published annually by the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town to track progress towards the realisation of children’s rights. The 2017 issue focuses on children and the sustainable development goals.

UNICEF's 2015 Profile of Child Marriage in Africa report sheds light on the realities of child marriage on the continent with well-visualised data. It references South Africa, but the report is better used as an overall account of child marriage in Africa.

The National Income Dynamic Study provides data on how individuals' lives have changed in South Africa since 2008. It is published by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation. First-time users have to register before downloading the datasets.