Sources of World Bank estimates of current mortality rates

The paper discusses the sources of the infant mortality rate (IMR) and life expectancy at birth for each of the 186 countries for which the Population and Human Resources Department at the World Bank makes demographic estimates and projections. Its purpose is to give some background on the derivation of mortality estimates used in the World Bank's demographic estimates and projections to provide users of the data with information on their recency and reliability. The paper does this through a general discussion of mortality projection methodology and a listing of the sources and assumptions used in constructing estimates for individual countries. The paper consists of two sections: the first section gives an overview of the sources, discusses their nature, and explains the projection methodology used to obtain current estimates; and the second section provides the documentation of mortality sources for each country, organized by region.