July 26, 2007—To find out how easy or hard it is to do business around the world, policy makers and investors now, with a click of their computer mouse, can see “the big picture” – a World Bank-produced Google map on doing business in 175 countries.
Countries are color-coded with placemarks in three categories for ease of doing business: easy (green), moderate (yellow) and difficult (red).
The new Doing Business Map complements the Bank Group’s flagship annual report on Doing Business by visualizing key information on ease of doing business. The map helps to communicate the key messages.
Click on a country and up pops a view of how that country did against the 10 criteria that the Doing Business team uses to rank economies. Those that made the most progress in reforming business regulations over the past year are flagged with a star.
The Doing Business Map is a “mashup” of data from the World Bank’s Doing Business database and Google Maps. Leading the effort to create this dynamic and intuitive mapping tool was Ramin Aliyev, Knowledge Management Analyst with the Bank’s Rapid Response Unit.
‘It’s Time to Start Reforming’
“The message we’re trying to convey with the map is that if a country is not doing well, especially compared to its neighbors, it is time to start reforming,” he said.
Launched by Doing Business in May the map was quickly picked up by more than 50 Web blogs, many of them focused on global development.
Where the annual report could take country policy makers some time to absorb, when they look at the new map, “in a couple of minutes they see not only how they’re doing, but also how their neighbors are doing,” Aliyev said.
He said a red flag may not necessarily discourage an investor from putting money into that country. “If he sees yellow or green flags next door, that may encourage him to invest.”
‘Data visualization is the next big thing’
Aliyev said he developed the map mashup concept when his supervisor Suzanne Smith, head of the Rapid Response Unit, urged him to see how rapidly evolving Web publishing technology could be harnessed to make the Bank’s formidable data and research easier to use.
“Data visualization is the next big thing,” he said. “Now we can tell stories on a computer screen right away.
Ultimately, Aliyev thinks, each Bank Vice Presidency could create a visual “planet” that could become part of a “galaxy” that brings together data now spread among hundreds of separate Bank Web sites.
The pioneering Doing Business Map mashup is part of the Web 2.0 trend that is transforming the Web, making previously hard-to-digest statistics and other data easy to use.
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