Publication: Big Data Innovation Challenge: Pioneering Approaches to Data-Driven Development
Loading...
Files in English
3,002 downloads
Published
2016
ISSN
Date
2016-10-03
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Big data can sound remote and lacking a human dimension, with few obvious links to development and impacting the lives of the poor. Concepts such as anti-poverty targeting, market access or rural electrification seem far more relevant – and easier to grasp. And yet some of today’s most groundbreaking initiatives in these areas rely on big data. This publication profiles these and more, showing how data on an unprecedented scale has the potential to improve lives in unprecedented ways. The featured case stories illustrate the diverse range of big data applications in development. For the World Bank, with twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, big data is big news – and this is just the beginning. The Big Data program brings togetherdata scientists, social scientists and sector specialists in a work program with two main objectives: To accelerate organizational capabilities in big data analytics for use in research and operations – to help the World Bank Group (WBG) better work towards ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. To position WBG as a leader in the use of big data solutions in development. The program aims to scale early pilots into projects that solve significant development challenges, and to establish best practices for using big data analytics to steer evidence-driven development. Launched in September 2014, the Big Data Innovation Challenge has been key in encouraging big data approaches. Exceeding all expectations, it attracted 131 innovative proposals and awarded 14 with funding and expertise to enable big data analytics in their projects. The winning initiatives cover an exciting range, from using satellite imagery to improve poverty mapping, to mining social media data to understand political sentiment, or cellphone data to increase the use of banking services. Others promote traffic flows or accountable road building, anticipate crop yields, predict violent crime and promote registration of land rights. This publication profiles 16 extraordinary initiatives from the Challenge winning teams and finalists. The case stories examine the application of big data analytics and how it can help achieve project goals.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank Group. 2016. Big Data Innovation Challenge: Pioneering Approaches to Data-Driven Development. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25102 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Coordination of Strategies and Programs for EU and State-Funded Investments in Romania’s Infrastructure(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-03-27)This report provides a diagnostic and a set of recommendations for the coordination of infrastructure investments in three main sectors in Romania: roads; water and wastewater; and social infrastructure (education, health, culture, and sports). The proposals formulated are targeted primarily at the main client of this work, the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration (MRDPA) and specifically at the Directorate General for Regional Development and Infrastructure (DG RDI), which manages the most important state-budget-funded program for local infrastructure investments – the National Local Development Program (PNDL). Other key stakeholders include the Center of Government (CoG), the Ministry of Public Finances, the Ministry of European Funds, other central authorities in charge of EU and/or state-funded investment programs, Regional Development Agencies, and county and local councils. While customized for the PNDL, the recommendations that follow can be replicated across all state-budget-funded investment programs. This report presents multiple instruments for promoting coordination: dedicated platforms, harmonization of investment programs (design, financing criteria, producers), and knowledge sharing of good practices at the local level.Publication Jobs and Land Use within Cities(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10)Over the last century, the urban spatial structure of cities has transformed dramatically from the traditional monocentric configuration to varying forms of decentralized organization. This paper reviews the theory and empirical evidence to understand the urban morphology of jobs and land use within a city. This survey highlights four broad insights: (i) The evolution of monocentric to polycentric centers has been accompanied by structural changes in the city. (ii) The internal geography of a city is an outcome of the trade-off between the pull from agglomeration economies and the push from congestion. (iii) The presence of externalities implies that the equilibrium spatial organization achieved by profit-maximizing firms may not necessarily be optimal. This justifies the role of public policy in addressing the associated market failures. (iv) The productive edge and competitiveness of a city can be enhanced by introducing policies that increase the overall connectivity to take advantage of economic opportunities across the metropolitan area. The survey also puts together a wide range of policy instruments that are useful in closing the gap between equilibrium urban spatial structure and the optimal outcome.Publication The Integrated Urban Development Strategy for Ploiesti Growth Pole 2014-2020(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016)In 2012, the World Bank signed five agreements with MRDPA for advisory services, out of which one relates to the growth poles policy and to its improvement for the programming period 2014-2020. This agreement has three components: 1) an analysis of the growth poles policy, 2) energy efficiency studies for each growth pole; and 3) a review of the Integrated Development Plans prepared by the growth poles for the period 2007-2013. In this context, South Muntenia Regional Development Agency, through the coordinator of Ploiești Growth Pole, requested the World Bank, under a project funded by ERDF through the Technical Assistance Operational Program 2007-2013, to support the Growth Pole in implementing the recommendations stemming from the previous analysis with: 1) updating the Integrated Development Plan for 2014-2020; and 2) proposing an improved institutional framework for coordinating the planning, implementation and monitoring of projects under this plan. The current document of the Integrated Development Plan belonging to Ploiești Growth Pole was developed during the period 2008-2009 and approved and submitted to South Muntenia RDA in April 2010. It contains a total number of 93 projects with a total value of RON 5,136,143,583.91, out of which 762,515,322.81 are EU funds, and the remainder comes from the national budget and the beneficiaries’ own contribution. In the process of updating the plan, the implementation status of these projects will be studied further, while attention will be also given to the unimplemented projects in order to see whether they will be included in the documentation, depending on their response to the new development conditions of the growth pole.Publication Planning Energy Efficient and Livable Cities(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-11)The world's urban population is expected to increase by about 2.7 billion by 2050.Virtually all of the increased population will be in developing countries, leading to massive needs for new and improved housing and urban infrastructures (UNDESA 2012). The planning and design of these new developments will reshape or create new urban landscapes with significant implications for energy consumption, infrastructure costs, as well as the livability and social and economic resilience of cities. Studies of cities around the world indicate that a city's livability and its level of energy use are closely linked to its physical form, namely the spatial distribution and dimensions of buildings, streets, and parks, as well as the spatial coordination of residences, jobs, social services, and environmental amenities.Publication Land Administration and Management in Ulaanbaater, Mongolia(Washington, DC, 2015-01)The City of Ulaanbaatar (UB) is undergoing a historic transformation toward market-driven urban development. This growth remains strongly influenced by city policy decisions that affect the supply and location of land for public and private uses. Private investment is concentrated in well-serviced land located in the central portion of the city and along major transportation corridors, which represent a small part of the total built area of the city. Mongolian law allows UB residents free access to land for residential use, which is commendable because it can reduce a substantial portion of the overall cost of housing. Due to these land allocations, however, low-density urban expansion has occurred along the urban fringes, which imposes heavy costs on transportation and the provision of basic utilities for city residents and omits an important possible source of revenue for financing these improvements. The current city administration clearly recognizes that urban land represents one of the most important assets under its guardianship and management. In particular, the administration is making a systematic effort to proactively manage land in the public interest. Notable achievements include: (i) a nearly complete, current accounting inventory of city-owned capital assets; (ii) surveying, mapping, inventorying, and auditing public-use land; and (iii) decisive administrative measures to stop and correct past practices of nontransparent and sometimes unlawful land allocations to private sector actors, and to protect public land from informal occupation. However, such reforms are incomplete, and the city administration s efforts are constrained by existing national laws and regulations and conflicting perceptions about land as a designated public entitlement for residential use. There are several outstanding challenges the city faces in improving the administration of land and supporting the function of urban land and property markets to support investment and economic growth.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Global Findex Database 2025: Connectivity and Financial Inclusion in the Digital Economy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-16)The Global Findex 2025 reveals how mobile technology is equipping more adults around the world to own and use financial accounts to save formally, access credit, make and receive digital payments, and pursue opportunities. Including the inaugural Global Findex Digital Connectivity Tracker, this fifth edition of Global Findex presents new insights on the interactions among mobile phone ownership, internet use, and financial inclusion. The Global Findex is the world’s most comprehensive database on digital and financial inclusion. It is also the only global source of comparable demand-side data, allowing cross-country analysis of how adults access and use mobile phones, the internet, and financial accounts to reach digital information and resources, save, borrow, make payments, and manage their financial health. Data for the Global Findex 2025 were collected from nationally representative surveys of about 145,000 adults in 141 economies. The latest edition follows the 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2021 editions and includes new series measuring mobile phone ownership and internet use, digital safety, and frequency of transactions using financial services. The Global Findex 2025 is an indispensable resource for policy makers in the fields of digital connectivity and financial inclusion, as well as for practitioners, researchers, and development professionals.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Renewable Energy Jobs and Sector Skills Mapping for Pakistan(Washington, DC, 2022)The Government of Pakistan (GOP) has adopted ambitious national renewable energy (RE) targets under the RE policy 2019. The policy sets out a growth trajectory for grid connected, non-hydro renewables, mandating at least 20 percent renewables in the country’s installed power generation capacity by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030. The government has simultaneously approved a comprehensive power generation capacity expansion plan, the integrated generation capacity expansion plan 2021-2030. Since large hydropower makes up the bulk of capacity additions in the IGCEP, new wind, solar, and bagasse projects in the IGCEP account for approximately 11,700 MW compared to 16,300 MW of non-hydro RE needed to meet the national RE targets. To capitalize on the employment creation potential of the RE targets and the IGCEP, policy makers will have to anticipate changes in workforce trends and develop a preemptive plan to manage skill requirements and prevent workforce shortages. This study was commissioned by the World Bank to facilitate cohesive RE workforce planning and identify skill gaps that can inhibit RE investments in Pakistan. The findings of the study will help inform skill development in RE by providing policy makers and other stakeholders, including the higher education commission (HEC) and the national vocational and technical training commission (NAVTTC), with indicative employment projections required for long-term planning.Publication The Container Port Performance Index 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-18)The Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) measures the time container ships spend in port, making it an important point of reference for stakeholders in the global economy. These stakeholders include port authorities and operators, national governments, supranational organizations, development agencies, and other public and private players in trade and logistics. The index highlights where vessel time in container ports could be improved. Streamlining these processes would benefit all parties involved, including shipping lines, national governments, and consumers. This fourth edition of the CPPI relies on data from 405 container ports with at least 24 container ship port calls in the calendar year 2023. As in earlier editions of the CPPI, the ranking employs two different methodological approaches: an administrative (technical) approach and a statistical approach (using matrix factorization). Combining these two approaches ensures that the overall ranking of container ports reflects actual port performance as closely as possible while also being statistically robust. The CPPI methodology assesses the sequential steps of a container ship port call. ‘Total port hours’ refers to the total time elapsed from the moment a ship arrives at the port until the vessel leaves the berth after completing its cargo operations. The CPPI uses time as an indicator because time is very important to shipping lines, ports, and the entire logistics chain. However, time, as captured by the CPPI, is not the only way to measure port efficiency, so it does not tell the entire story of a port’s performance. Factors that can influence the time vessels spend in ports can be location-specific and under the port’s control (endogenous) or external and beyond the control of the port (exogenous). The CPPI measures time spent in container ports, strictly based on quantitative data only, which do not reveal the underlying factors or root causes of extended port times. A detailed port-specific diagnostic would be required to assess the contribution of underlying factors to the time a vessel spends in port. A very low ranking or a significant change in ranking may warrant special attention, for which the World Bank generally recommends a detailed diagnostic.Publication Jobless Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-09-26)Analyses of GDP per capita differences across countries focus almost exclusively on differences in productivity. This paper shows that there are also large differences in medium-run dynamics in the employment-to-population ratio. The paper finds a general tendency for productivity growth to be negatively correlated with changes in the employment to population ratio for a large sample of EMDEs—a phenomenon described using the term jobless development in this paper. The paper also shows that there are large differences in the steady state levels of the employment to population ratios that countries are converging to. There are also countries that experience substantial increases in their employment-to-population ratio during the development process. Using a two-stage procedure, the paper studies this issue in a large sample of EMDEs. In the first stage, the paper estimates differences in steady-state employment ratios across countries. In the second stage, it documents which institutional and policy factors are correlated with steady-state employment ratios. The paper finds particularly large differences across countries in steady-state employment ratios for women. Fewer legal protections of women’s rights are associated with lower steady-state employment ratios for women, without an offsetting positive effect for men.