Open access to World Bank data

The trickle of government bodies and large-scale organisations freeing up their data for transparency, scrutiny and creative exploration is quickly turning into something of a flow.

The FutureGuv website has published details of the latest large institution to follow the open data initiative and make its data freely and publicly accessible. The World Bank has created a portal which will enable “policymakers to access to more than 2000 financial, business, health, economic and human development statistics, information that was previously exclusive to paying subscribers”. Access to the data-sets can be found here.

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

The article also explains how, as well as making the data available, the World Bank portal also intends to offer a platform on which developers will be able to create visualisation tools to help make the data more accessible and useful insight more possible.

Once again this presents high-profile evidence of the prominence and importance of the emerging visualisation field as the world’s data becomes more and more accessible.