The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors recently approved a new Access to Information policy.  In keeping with this new policy, the The World Bank has made the following databases free to the public. You can also find these databases on the Libraries’ Indexes/Databases pages.

The World Bank Open Data
The World Bank’s Open Data initiative is intended to provide all users with access to World Bank data. The Development Data Group coordinates statistical and data work and maintains a number of macro, financial and sector databases. These databases are used by teams to prepare Country Assistance Strategies, poverty assessments, research studies and other forms of economic and sector work. Included are World Development Indicators, Global Development Finance, Africa Development Indicators and Global Economic Monitor. 

Africa  Development Indicators (ADI)
ADI is the most detailed collection of data on Africa, containing over 1,600 indicators, covering 53 African countries and spanning the period 1961 to 2008. Data include social, economic, financial, natural resources, infrastructure, governance, partnership, and environmental indicators.

Global Development Finance (GDF)
Global Development Finance is the sole repository for statistics on the external debt of developing countries derived from loan-by-loan records. This edition of GDF presents reported or estimated data on the total external debt of 128 individual countries that report to the World Bank’s Debtor reporting System (DRS).

Global Economic Monitor (GEM)
GEM provides a daily and monthly commentary on global economic conditions along with direct access to high frequency data that is refreshed daily. It provides analysis of current economic trends, economic, financial and commodity data indicators, an extensive database including growth and commodity forecasts .

World Development Indicators (WDI)
WDI is the World Bank’s premier annual compilation of data about development. WDI includes more than 900 indicators in over 80 tables organized in six sections: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links.