World Development Indicators
OVERVIEW
World Development Indicators (WDI) serves as the World Bank's primary collection of internationally comparable data on development. It is a comprehensive resource that contains pertinent, top-notch statistics concerning global development and poverty alleviation efforts. Within this database, you can access over 1,400 time series indicators for 217 economies and over 40 country groups, with historical data spanning over five decades for many of these indicators.
*The description above is a paraphrased version of the description on the World Bank鈥檚 website.
Available Data File Formats
Excel, CSV, Tabbed TXT, SDMX
Accessibility
This is an open data source for public use.
How to retrieve data by example
Scenario
Suppose you want to examine GDP growth rates, food imports, and food exports in China, India, Japan, and Kenya over a decade from 2013 to 2022 in order to assess how well each country handled economic difficulties, such as the effects of COVID-19.
Step-by-step
1. Visit the World Bank Development Indicators鈥 website by clicking on https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators
2. From the left panel of the window, click on 鈥淒atabase鈥 and select 鈥淲orld Development Indicators鈥.
3. From the left pane of the window, scroll down and click on 鈥淐ountry鈥 to select the countries of your choice (China, India, Japan, and Kenya). You can use the 鈥渟earch bar鈥 or the 鈥渇ilter鈥 to search and select countries of your choice.
4. From the left pane, click on 鈥渟eries鈥 to select 鈥淕DP growth (annual %)鈥 鈥淔ood Exports (% of merchandise exports)鈥, 鈥淔ood Imports (% of merchandise imports)鈥 or use the scroll bar, 鈥渟earch bar鈥 or the 鈥渇ilter鈥.
5. From the left pane, click on 鈥淭ime鈥 and select the years of your choice (from 2013 to 2022) and click on 鈥淎pply Changes鈥.
6. Afterwards, this how the interface would appear.
7. To analyze GDP growth, food exports, and food imports for any other country (such as India) click on the grey colored box enclosed in the yellow circle to display the list of countries and select India as shown below.
8. After selecting any other country of interest (such as India), this is how the interface would appear.
9. To download the chart, click on the 鈥淒ownload鈥 icon enclosed by a yellow circle as seen below.
10. To download the data of the chart in any format (for example, Excel), click on the 鈥淒ownload options鈥 enclosed by a yellow circle.
11. This is how the excel data would appear.
Be sure to consult with the source website on how to correctly cite your data. For this scenario, the citation in APA would look something like this:
World Bank Development Indicators, Washington D.C: The World Bank (2024)