Public draft · claims are still being checked · how we check sources

Data and citation

Everything on the site comes from the records, and the records can be downloaded. These files are rebuilt with the site; this build is of 28 Oct 2026.

Downloads

Each table comes as CSV (UTF-8, a header row, lists joined with "; ") and as JSON with the same rows. Both open in R (read.csv) and pandas (read_csv) without cleaning. A record's ID is stable, so the tables join on it.

  • Records: ideas.csv · ideas.json. One row per record (ideas and constraints): its type, places, policy areas, institutions, the status and status date on each of the four tracks, its address and a "Cite as" line.
  • Statuses: statuses.csv · statuses.json. One row per record and track: the status, the date of the milestone it rests on, when it was last checked against its sources (as of), how many evidence items carry it, and its summary.
  • Blockers: blockers.csv · blockers.json. One row per blocker: its policy area, type, places, the records it rests on, and whether an effect on trade or investment has been established.
  • Citations: citations.csv · citations.json. One row per cited statement on a record: where in the record it sits, the source and its publisher, tier and address, the locator, the passage, and its check level (verified by a person, unverified, or paraphrase).

Check levels matter. Of the 285 quotations on the records, 47 have been checked against their documents by a person; the rest are marked unverified until someone does. Filter the citations table on quote_check before relying on a passage.

How to cite

Cite a record by its ID and the build date, as each record page shows under "Cite as". For example:

Laurence Wilse-Samson, Bridging African Borders, record ZAF-R-0001: "New wholesale market (SAWEM)" (public draft, built 2026-10-28). https://borders.lwilsesamson.com/ideas/zaf-r-0001/

The site is a public draft and records change as they are checked. The build date tells a reader which version you used, and Updates and corrections says what changed since.

Licence

The records, the site's own prose and these downloads are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). Credit "Laurence Wilse-Samson, Bridging African Borders". Quoted passages remain under their publishers' terms and are not covered; maps, photographs and other material from elsewhere keep the licences shown beside them.

Feed

Each update cycle is published as an entry in an Atom feed: feed.xml.