Google it

Nov 13th, 2009 10:24 AM UTC
By David Cole

This week brings an exciting new development for Google enthusiasts and all those interested in fact-based debate and data. According to the Official Google Blog, World Bank public data will now be more readily available and easy to find through the search engine.

Google explains it like this:

With today’s update, you can quickly access more data with a broad range of queries. Search should be intuitive, so we’ve done the work to think through queries where public data will be most relevant to you. To see the new data, try queries like [gdp of indonesia], [life expectancy brazil], [rwanda's population growth], [energy use of iceland], [co2 emissions of iceland] and [gdp growth rate argentina].

Overall Google has made 17 World Bank indicators available to search, and many of them will be of great interest to those interested in development issues. For example you can cross-check the per capita Gross National Income of the East African states of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania:

Or you could compare the per capita CO2 emissions of the US, Germany, China and Ethiopia:

Clearly this opening up of public statistics has the potential to be a great tool, and the hope is it will inspire people to look more deeply at some of the world’s inequalities.

Check it out, and let us know what you think.

TAGS: ONE