Yesterday, The World Bank Group has made available more than 2,000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics. The public can access all these data for free.
Access method for the moment is by manually downloading each data set. But by this mid 2010 these data will be programmatically accessible thru web API.
Data like these can be processes in a number of ways and for many purposes, from public education to policy making. Many local governments and organizations around the world now moving towards a more transparent, more efficient, and more participating governance thru this kind of open data initiatives.
From World Bank press release:
The decision─part of a larger effort to increase access to information at the World Bank─means that researchers, journalists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), entrepreneurs and school children alike will be able to tap into the World Bank’s databases via a new website, data.worldbank.org.
Experts say the Bank’s open data initiative has the potential to stimulate more evidence-based policymaking in developing countries by bringing more researchers and innovative analysis into the development process. The move is also likely to stimulate demand for data and increase countries’ capacity to produce it, they say.
And, for the first time, data will be available in languages other than English, with an initial 330 indicators translated into French, Spanish and Arabic.
“It’s important to make the data and knowledge of the World Bank available to everyone,” World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Statistics tell the story of people in developing and emerging countries and can play an important part in helping to overcome poverty.”
The World Bank Open Data website can be access at http://data.worldbank.org.
Example: Data of Lao PDR, with indicator figures and charts (below)
