WASHINGTON - The World
Development Indicators (WDI) 2010, released today, gives a
statistical progress toward achieving the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs).

The WDI database, launched along with the World Bank’s
Open Data initiative to provide free data to all users, includes
more than 900 indicators documenting the state of all the world’s
economies. The WDI covers education, health, poverty,
environment, economy, trade, and much more.

“The WDI provides a valuable statistical picture of the
world and how far we’ve come in advancing development,” said
Justin Yifu Lin, the World Bank’s Chief Economist and the Senior
Vice President for Development Economics.  “Making this
comprehensive data free for all is a dream come true.”

 

This year’s WDI focuses on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
now in their 10th year. It shows that considerable progress has
been made in reaching these challenging goals. Despite the economic
and financial crisis that has swept over the globe, the target to
reduce by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty
is still within reach in several developing regions. Home to the
most people living on less than $1.25 a day, Asia has accounted for
much of this remarkable achievement. Sub-Saharan Africa meanwhile
remains off track to meet the income poverty goal.

But progress has been uneven at the country level. Only 49 of 87
countries with data are on track to achieve the poverty target.
Some 41 percent of the people in low- and middle-income countries
live in countries that are unlikely to achieve the target. And 12
percent live in the 60 countries for which there are insufficient
data to assess progress.

“An important part of the World Bank’s strategy
for fighting poverty is improving the statistical systems in
developing countries. Governments, citizens, and aid agencies need
reliable statistics to shape their policies,” said Shaida
Badiee, director of the Development Data Group that produces the
World Development Indicators.

Highlights from the 2010 WDI include:

Economy

The world economy grew by 2.8  percent in 2008 measured in
purchasing power parity terms, down from 5.0 percent in 2007. Low-
and middle-income economies grew faster than high-income economies,
increasing their share of world output by more than a percentage
point to 43.3 percent.

Trade fell in almost every region under the impact of the global
recession. South Asia was the only exception. Developing economies
now account for 33 of merchandise exports and 21 percent of service
exports. But low-income economies are largely left out, providing
only 1 percent of world exports.

Educational attainment

The MDGs call for all children to be able to complete primary
school by 2015. This goal is close to being achieved. At the end of
the 2007 school year, 7 out of 10 people in the developing world
lived in countries that have achieved full primary school
enrollment or are on track to do so. Still this leaves 72 million
primary school-age children not enrolled, most of them in South
Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Gender equality

Education opportunities for girls have expanded everywhere, but
gender gaps remain large in low-income economies, especially at the
primary and secondary levels.

More women are in the workforce, although they are more likely
than men to be in vulnerable jobs, without regular salaries or
benefits.

More women are entering national parliaments. The largest gains
have been made in South Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean,
where women now occupy more than 20 percent of the seats.

Child health

Increasing immunization rates, better management of diarrheal
diseases, and malaria prevention programs have all contributed to
falling mortality rates for children under age five. In developing
countries, the child mortality rate declined from 101 per 1,000 in
1990 to 73 in 2008.

Thirty-nine countries, representing 45 percent of the population
of developing countries have achieved or are on track to achieve a
two-thirds reduction in child mortality before 2015.

Mothers’ health

New estimates of maternal mortality, which became available
after the WDI went to press, show substantial decreases in maternal
deaths for the first time since setting the fifth MDG target of a
75 percent reduction in the mortality ratio from levels prevailing
in 1990. Official estimates from the United Nations later this year
are likely to confirm this trend.

The proportion of pregnant women who had at least one antenatal
visit rose from 64 percent in 1990 to 79 percent in 2008. But the
proportion who had the recommended four or more visits is still
less than 50 percent in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where
most maternal and infant deaths occur.

Combating disease

New HIV infections have fallen by 17 percent since 2000, and
wider access to antiretroviral treatment has contributed to the
first decline in AIDS deaths since the epidemic began. But there
are still 33.4 million people - two-thirds of them in Sub-Saharan
Africa living with HIV/AIDS and most of them women.

Tuberculosis prevalence has fallen, but the target of halving
the 1990 prevalence rate by 2015 is unlikely to be met. In 2007
there were 13.7 million cases globally, down only slight from
2006.

There were nearly 1 million malaria-related deaths in 2006.
Ninety percent of malaria deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, and
most are children under age 5. Progress has been made in scaling up
the use of insecticide-treated bed nets among children, which rose
from 2 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2006.

Economic growth-necessary for reducing
poverty, improving people’s lives, and achieving the MDGs-entails
significant energy use. Generating this energy will affect
greenhouse gas emissions. There is now consensus that greenhouse
gas emissions need to peak by 2015 to curb emissions to about 50
percent of their 1990 levels by 2050, to keep global warming below
2°C, and to avoid more dangerous and catastrophic climate
change.

Environmental sustainability

Net forest losses since 1990 have been
substantial but recent data show a slowing in the global rate of
deforestation. In East Asia, China has added to its forest cover by
converting marginal crop lands.

While economies have become more efficient
in their use of energy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions per unit
of GDP produced, carbon dioxide emissions per capita continue to
rise.

More people have access to improved
(protected and accessible) water sources, and at least 65
developing countries are on track to reduce by half the proportion
of people lacking access to water source. But more than 1.5 billion
people lack access to toilets, latrines and other forms of improved
sanitation and there has been little improvement since 1990.

Development partnership

Aid flows from the member of the OECD Development Assistance
Committee have increases - from $69 billion in 2000 to $122 billion
in 2008 - but even with further increases in 2009 and 2010 they
will fall short of the pledges made five years ago.

Better debt management, trade expansion, and, for the poorest
countries, substantial debt relief have reduced the burden of debt
service.  

Average tariffs have been falling and countries are trading more
freely, but many obstacles remain for developing country exporters.
Some are imposed by their trading partners - such as high peak
tariffs applied selectively to certain good and subsidies paid by
rich countries to domestic agricultural producers - and some are
the result of poor infrastructure and inefficiencies that limit the
ability of developing countries to compete in the global market
place.

In addition to the print edition, the full WDI database is
available on the Web through
data.worldbank.org or on CD-ROM.
Several ‘Little Data Books’, which provide key data on a range of
topics, are also available. An Atlas of Global Development is also
available.