World Bank Development Indicators Follow Tech Trends

It wasn't my expectation to have a front row seat to almost-breaking news during a presentation on the powerful toolkit that social media represents for the philanthropic world. A key player in international development is embracing technological change and the opportunities it provides in a big way.

As announced today by The World Bank (news of which was shared with attendees of the Global Philanthropy Forum session "Social Media, Redefining Community and Igniting Impact"), the global lending body is releasing to the public its annual trove of data covering health, economic, education, agricultural and environmental issues. The World Bank's annual World Development Indicators publications have long been published for sale, an invaluable resource for worldwide policy makers, elected officials and decision makers for targeting development and relief efforts.

The decision is highly significant owing to the worldwide importance and reach of these data. Opening up the data set to public access hinges on the understanding that together we know more and can do more. It also encourages engaged and talented people everywhere to dig in to the information, look for hidden patterns and previously undetected linkages, so that problems and needs are more likely to be addressed with greater speed and creativity.

In the spirit of moving things along with dispatch, the World Bank is expected to announce a development challenge for use of the data later this year. An incentive award is anticipated to be made available for the individual or team who comes up with the best and most beneficial application for the global data.

As explained by the World Bank's press release:

"The WDI database, launched along with the World Bank’s Open Data initiative to provide free data to all users, includes more than 900 indicators documenting the state of all the world’s economies. The WDI covers education, health, poverty, environment, economy, trade, and much more."

The decision flows naturally from a pattern of increased adaptation to a wired world exhibited by the philanthropic sector. Examples of the successful embrace of leading-edge tools to inform, engage and provide service should be familiar to many Tonic readers. Ushahidi, initiated to provide real-time georeferenced instances of violence and unrest in the wake of Kenyan elections has grown to find good use in Haiti's recovery, and even here in the US. The Ushahidi platform was helpful during the Washington DC area's "snowmageddon" event of this past winter, providing updates on the locations of snow removal activities for winter-weary residents.

FrontlineSMS Medic, another entity we've written about at Tonic, provides another example of creatively leveraging tools to instantly deliver information to assist medical service in regions where public health resources are limited. Kiva.org is offered as exemplifying a core value of connection. The micro lending platform helps individual donors develop a deep and genuine connection to issues that matter and to those actual people that they are helping with their gifts, and we should expect this dynamic of connection and flow of information in all directions to continue to evolve.

We'll still need the wealthy individual to write the big check, but greater impact will be generated by more individuals of modest means who find issues that are resonant and who actively connect to them with small individual gifts. Emerging technologies permit this flow of information, offering opportunities for donors to receive updates and success stories from on the ground.

Another core trend that session presenters anticipate continuing to flourish is the use of geolocational data. As a commenter to the proceedings offered for the group, "geography matters. Who does what and where is fundamentally important" to an organization's being certain of remaining effective and on target with tracking problems and solutions to them.

Image by World Resources Institute via Wikimedia Commons.