The GHS-Panel survey is a nationally representative survey administered every 2–3 years, that covers a range of topics including demography, education, welfare, agriculture, health and food security. The data is collected in two visits: post-planting and post-harvest seasons. The survey follows the same households over time and collects a rich set of information, to allow for comprehensive time-series analyses that can help shape policies for a wide array of development sectors. Here are some interesting findings from the 2015–16 survey:
Low commodity prices and weak global trade continue to create challenging conditions for commodity-exporting, emerging markets and developing economies. According to the Global Economic Prospects, in 2016 commodity exporters in these economies grew more slowly than commodity importers did.
The World Bank Group just launched a new open data platform for trade and competitiveness – TCdata360. Try it today and share your visuals on Twitter with the hashtag #TCdata360.
Open data – statistics that are accessible to all at little or no cost – is a critical component of global development and the World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. How can we measure progress towards our objectives without a method of tracking how far we’ve come?
High quality and freely available data serves different stakeholders in different ways. For those of us working in global development, data helps us set baselines, identify what types of policies are effective, track progress and evaluate impact. For the private sector, open data helps companies operate more efficiently, identify areas where industries can improve, and pinpoint areas for new investment. Citizens benefit from open data by getting an understanding of what governments are doing to help them, and transparent data can help reinforce trust. The public sector utilizes data in many ways, including tracking progress against peers and pinpointing areas where countries might be excelling or lagging behind.
The World Bank Group offers a variety of open data sources for public use. The newest platform, TCdata360, focuses on trade and competitiveness and aggregates thousands of data points from dozens of vetted sources. This type of high quality data helps us get an unbiased, objective, and comprehensive view of how the world economy works and demonstrates how all the pieces of the global economy are integrated. Without it, there would be no evidence base on areas that we know to be critical for development, such as global value chains, foreign direct investment, or even starting new businesses.
TCdata360 has three distinct advantages over other data websites:
It’s comprehensive. TCdata360 offers 2,000 indicators aggregated from across more than 20 data sources. These sources include other well-known World Bank Group data sets such as Doing Business, the Logistics Performance Index, and the World Development Indicators, as well as data from other reputable sources, including the IMF, World Economic Forum, United Nations, and WTO. It’s a one-stop shop for all things trade and competitiveness, one that does not exist anywhere else
It’s constantly updated. Because TCdata360 pulls data from other sources as soon as they are updated, TCdata360 is updated. This eliminates the need for searching around for the most current figures on trade and competitiveness – TCdata360 will always be current.
It’s easy to use. You do not need to be a trade expert or economist to use TCdata360. There are no complicated queries to manage or spreadsheets to navigate. The site is visual and is based on easy-to-interpret charts, graphs and maps, which are all downloadable and shareable. It’s simple, interactive and visual. For advanced users, it offers features like an API (application programming interface).
This chart from TCdata360 tracks the number of days required to start a business in Kenya
Over the past two decades, high-tech exports from Kazakhstan have been increasing steadily. The World Bank Group has been working since 2008 with the Kazakh Government and scientist groups to further expand the country’s high-tech exports in a number of sectors. Through the Technology Commercialization Project, 65 new startups received grant funding and business training to get their innovations out of the lab and into markets. The startups operate in a wide variety of industries including agriculture, health, medicine, gas, oil and robotics. Already 40 of these businesses have reached first sales.
The World Development Indicators database has been updated. This is a regular quarterly update to over 800 indicators and includes both new indicators and updates to existing indicators.
This release features new external debt data from the International Debt Statistics database, and revised data for national accounts, PPP series, balance of payments, FDI inflows, remittances, and monetary indicators. Updates have also been made for government finance indicators, malnutrition series, education aggregates, Enterprise Surveys, commercial banks, refugees, high-technology exports, and other trade-related indicators. IDA and IBRD group data have been adjusted to reflect Syrian Arab Republic's reclassification as an IDA only country.
IDS 2017 presents statistics and analysis on the external debt and financial flows (debt and equity) for the world’s economies for 2015. This publication provides more than 200 time series indicators from 1970 to 2015 for most reporting countries. To access the report and related products you can:
See the press release for highlights from the report
This year’s edition of International Debt Statistics been reconfigured to offer a more condensed presentation of the principal indicators, along with additional tables showcasing quarterly external debt statistics and public sector debt to respond to user demand for timely, comprehensive data on trends in external debt in low middle and high income countries.
By providing comprehensive and timely data that reflects the latest additions and revisions, and by expanding the scope of the data available online, we aim to serve the needs of our users and to reach a wider audience.
The LSMS team continues to support the World Bank's pledge to collaborate with the 78 poorest countries to collect high-quality national household survey data every three years, to better inform investments and policies to eradicate extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. A big part of this effort involves improving data collection methods in key areas. Toward that end, under the aegis of the World Bank’s Household Survey Working Group, we have developed a methodological research plan that focuses on welfare, gender, agriculture, and data processing/dissemination. Work is underway, and LSMS is collaborating with UNESCO, ILO, FAO, and other international organizations to establish standards and validate methods for data collection. As part of this effort, at a recent expert consultation at our Center for Development Data in Rome (hosted with FAO), representatives from development agencies and national statistical offices agreed on draft guidelines for collecting data on food consumption. Currently, there are no internationally agreed-upon standards for household consumption and expenditure surveys, so bringing this agenda forward can greatly improve the quality and comparability of global poverty, food security, and nutrition data.
Uganda: The Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS) 2013/14 data are also available. This round follows from the 2005/06, 2009/10, 2010/11, and 2011/12 rounds and includes 3,119 households. The UNPS is implemented in collaboration with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics.
DNA Fingerprinting, Drones and Remote Sensing in Ethiopia
CGIAR-Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) implemented two data experiments in collaboration with LSMS, the World Bank, and the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency. One experiment examined data accuracy on measuring improved sweet potato varietal adoption. It compared three household-based methods against DNA fingerprinting benchmark. These included: (i) farmer elicitation, (ii) farmer elicitation using visual-aid, and (iii) enumerator elicitation using visual-aid. Visual-aid protocols were better than farmer elicitation, but still far below the benchmark estimates. Another experiment focused on crop residue coverage measurement. It compared four survey-based (interviewee and enumerator estimations as well as use of visual-aid protocol) and two aerial (drones' images and remote sensing) methods against a line-transect benchmark. The results ranked measurement options for survey practitioners and researchers in conservation agriculture.
In many low and middle income countries, out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures are high, and can be a significant financial risk to the poor. Universal health coverage (UHC) is about people having access to needed health care without suffering undue financial hardship.
Many rural households in low- and middle-income countries depend on livestock for their livelihoods. Sustainable livestock systems can contribute to reducing poverty, ending hunger, and improving health, and can also be key in addressing environmental degradation and climate change, and preserving biodiversity.
Measuring livestock systems—and the socioeconomic benefits they generate—remains a challenge due to a lack of high-quality, nationally representative data. Livestock is often neglected in many national statistical operations and, as a result, decision makers are unable to design evidence-based livestock sector policies and investments.
A new multi-partner publication provides guidance for effectively including livestock in multi-topic and agricultural household surveys. The livestock module template provided in this Guidebook can be used by survey practitioners and stakeholders to generate household-level statistics on livestock, its role in the household economy, and its contribution to livelihoods. It builds on a variety of multi-topic and agricultural/livestock household survey questionnaires implemented in low- and middle-income countries, and on lessons learned from the implementation of comprehensive livestock questionnaires, as part of multi-topic household surveys, in Niger, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The Guidebook is the result of collaboration between the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) team, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics, and the Uganda Bureau of Statistics.
Niger: The data from wave 2 of the Niger Enquête Nationale sur les Conditions de Vie des Ménages et l'Agriculture (ECVMA 2014) are now available. This panel dataset follows from the 2011 survey; 3,614 of the original 3,859 households were re-interviewed. The ECVMA is implemented in collaboration with the Niger Institut National de la Statistique (INS).
