The World Bank has launched a new website, data.worldbank.org, offering free access to more than 2,000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics on over 200 countries — data previously been available only to paying subscribers. The move is part of a wider effort by the bank to improve access to information, and includes 330 indicators in French, Spanish and Arabic.

“The real power of open data is the enormous opportunity to turn data into knowledge and useful applications to enhance transparency and ultimately accountability of all actors in development,” said Aleem Walji, manager of the World Bank Institute's new Innovation Practice. “Free and open access to data will empower citizens to get more directly involved in the development process.”

Walji announced that the World Bank will launch an “Apps for Development” challenge later this year with the aim of getting developers to “transform datasets into new applications to help tackle existing development challenges, such as infant mortality, literacy and extreme poverty.”

“We’re excited to be part of the open data revolution,” says Nicole Frost, who works on modernising the World Bank’s website.

“We’re going to get a new audience for our data that we’ve never seen. The high school kids in Des Moines (Iowa), Dakar (Senegal), and Cairo (Egypt) are going to be getting access to Bank data. We’re going to be so integrated in all kinds of search engines all over the world that we’re going to reach a group of people we’ve never reached before and hope will continue browsing, learning about development issues and things that this organization is committed to.”

Source:

• World Bank

• Oxfam: poor countries forced to cut back crisis response too soon
• Piebalgs: EU must spend more to achieve MDGs
• Parliament links budget approval to agreement on EEAS organisation
• Lawyers say Ashton's EEAS proposal is contrary to Lisbon Treaty