the African Uptimist

Another fascinating look at global statistics

i have seen some great statistical graphics and tools in my time, but this collection of 300 globes from WORLDPROCESSOR is truly in a class of its own.  A very special class.  Though no where near as precise and flexible as the robust and beautiful Gapminder--which i first stumbled upon more than a year ago-- worldprocessor will keep you glued to your monitor for hours with its vast array of entertaining and informative representations of interesting statistics.  Well done!

Observing the ups and downs of poverty

Understanding a problem is often a first step towards its solution.  A growing list of online tools designed to enhance our understanding of poverty-related data are being made freely available on the Web.  One of these is the much loved Gapminder, which i covered here several months ago.  Now, Alex Steffen has identified several more, and posted comments and links to them on the WorldChanging site.  Very  convenient and informative. Ultimately, of course, it will take more than a few cool graphics to eliminate poverty.  But these tools can certainly help all concerned to see the big picture, making it easier to close the gap between understanding and effective action.

Google and Sida help development planners Gapmind their business

At a recent meeting, one participant asked me what the level of television usage was in Ghana.  I didn't have a good estimate at hand, but offered 'anecdotal' evidence suggesting that at least 60 percent of all urban households have access to TV.  Moments like that make me look forward to the day when a great tool like Google Gapminder is not only commonplace, but also more comprehensive.  In its current form, the Gapminder puts development indicators at your fingertips, and enables you to visualize them using a dynamic scatterplotting system where each bubble represents a country, as illustrated here

The position of each bubble is determined by the indicators on the axes. The size of the bubble represents the population of the country. The available indicators include: carbon dioxide emissions, child mortality, economic growth, internet users per 1000 people, military budget, phone users per 1000 people, urban population. The list is likely to expand as more data sources are added over the coming months.  Gapfinder was originally developed with funding from the Swedish International Development co-operation Agency, Sida in collaboration with the United Nations Statistic Division.  Their goal is to promote free access to searchable public data, and you can find various animations of different types of data here.

10 minutes at the Development Gateway

AiDA--Accessible Information on Development Activities--on the Development Gateway is the largest online, searchable directory of development projects and activities worldwide.  It offers "a quick overview of who is doing what in international development, where they are doing it, and with what funds. Information is harvested from major bilateral donors, multilateral development banks, and UN agencies. The directory is searchable by country, sector or donor." Projects in several African countries are listed. My quick search for energy projects in Ghana, yielded two items:

• Akosombo Retrofit (with EU funding of US$5,357,342); and
• Trade and Investment Gateway Project (with IDA funding of US$101,000,000)

AiDA could enhance its value considerably if visitors are allowed to submit additional projects that may be missing from their database, or to edit the existing information.  That way, smaller (but no lesss important) projects like AREED--African Rural Energy Enterprises Development--could be included.  The Knowledge Finder page on the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) website, for instance, has a feature like that which allows visitors to submit new sites.  AiDA might want to adopt a similar approach.