Name: AI startup classification in developing countries
Creator: World Bank Group

The BOOST initiative is a Bank-wide collaborative effort launched in 2010 to facilitate access to budget data and promote effective use for improved decision-making processes, transparency and accountability.

BOOST - Public Expenditure Database

This collection contains datasets that may be useful for analysis, response or modelling for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Related Datasets

The Data360 initiative aims to integrate high-value data and knowledge curated in the Bank’s verticals into a user-centered data platform. 

Data 360

The Development Data Partnership platform facilitates formation of public-private partnerships for solving development challenges with technology. Specifically, the Development Data Partnership Working Group organizes opportunities for WBG staff to work with technology companies who offer pro-bono data and resources.

Development Data Partnership

This collection contains discrepancy indexes for UN COMTRADE data that aims to capture both the frequency of missed reporting and its impact on overall recorded trade value

Discrepancy Index

A collection of datasets produced through partnership between the World Bank and the European Space Agency (ESA) Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD) initiative.

Earth Observation for Sustainable Development

Open data and analytics for a sustainable energy future.

Energy Data Info

This collection features datasets to support building policies, institutions and investments for inclusive and sustainable growth.

Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions

Project Page: https://worldbank.github.io/GEEST/README.html 

As part of the “Geospatial Assessment of Women Employment and Business Opportunities in the Energy Sector” project, open-source Gender-related spatial data was collected for 31 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) across the globe, resulting in curated and thoroughly documented geodatabases (GDBs) that are now ready to be explored! 
Fifty-nine spatial layers were identified and then researched for each country, covering the following categories: Demographics and Population | Renewable Energy | Energy Access | Education | Jobs and Finance | Digital Inclusion | Transportation | Safety | Amenities | Climate/Earth | Law/Policy/Government. 


However, not every country GDB contains all 59 data layers, as this was dependent on the availability of open-source data in each SIDS. Users are encouraged to check the accompanying metadata excel file for more information on the datasets in each GDB, the vintage, and the

Gender Spatial Data - Small Island States

A collection of datasets that contain geospatial data. These datasets have one or more resources in a geospatial data format.

Geospatial Datasets

Collection of useful datasets from IMF made available to Bank staff via <a href=http://mydatabank.worldbank.org>myDataBank</a>

IMF Dataset

A collection of datasets to help finance the global infrastructure gap.

Infrastructure Finance Datasets

Data and dataset subscriptions managed by the Library Network on agriculture, business, economics, energy, finance, health, risk, water, and more..

Library Databases

The LinkedIn-World Bank partnership offers data to help governments and researchers understand rapidly evolving labor markets with detailed and dynamic data. It allows leaders to benchmark and compare labor markets across the world; analyze skills, occupations, migration, and industries; and leverage real-time data to make policy changes.Visualizations for many of these data are available at <a href=https://linkedindata.worldbank.org/>linkedindata.worldbank.org</a>

LinkedIn Data for Development

Collection of merchandise trade data available to World Bank staff.

Merchandise Trade Data

This collection includes datasets associated with research organized under the Bank, <a href=http://prwp.worldbank.org target='_blank' title='Opens in a new window'>Policy Research Working Papers</a>.

Policy Research Working Papers

This collection contains data on disaster and climate risk assessments curated by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).

Risk Data Library

This collection presents software tools and models developed by the World Bank to support monitoring, planning, programming and the economic evaluation of roads and highways works.

Road Software Tools

This spatial database, a product of the South Asia Region Chief Economist's (SARCE) Office, presents data collected from official sources and harmonized into different spatial levels. Data includes economic and environmental data across 12 topic areas, and includes data from four countries in South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal) for both 2001 and 2011.

SARCE Spatial Database

A collection of country Small Area Estimation (SAE) and Poverty Mapping that contains papers, shapefiles, and datasets produced through partnerships between the World Bank and country statistics offices.

Small area estimates / Poverty mapping

This collection consists of datasets compiled and created by the World Bank Data Lab in response to a request by the Syria Economic Monitor Team to explore alternative data sources to better understand changing trends in trade and economic activity, focusing on: surface cross-border transport routes, changes in observed agricultural production, observed nighttime lights, and reported conflict.

Syria Economic Monitor

A collection of relevant datasets to support operations in Ukraine.

Ukraine datasets

Catalogue lists all the data produced under the partnership contracts between the World Bank Group and the European Space Agency

World Bank (WBG) - European Space Agency (ESA) Database

A collection of datasets to help achieve universal access to reliable and fast internet services for all.

World Bank Digital Development Data

A collection of datasets to help achieve sustainable energy for all.

World Bank Energy Datasets

A collection of datasets to help achieve sustainable mobility for all.

World Bank Transport Data

From Data to a Water-Secure World for All. World Bank Water Data surrounding the three pillars of Sustain Water Resources, Deliver Services and Build Resilience.

World Bank Water Data

The World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives explores the tremendous potential of the changing data landscape to improve the lives of poor people, while also acknowledging its potential to open back doors that can harm individuals, businesses, and societies. To address this tension between the helpful and harmful potential of data, this Report calls for a new social contract that enables the use and reuse of data to create economic and social value, ensures equitable access to that value, and fosters trust that data will not be misused in harmful ways. The data used in the WDR2021 are curated as a collection here.

World Development Report 2021

The World Development Report 2022: Finance for an Equitable Recovery examines the central role of finance in the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it looks into the consequences of the crisis most likely to affect emerging economies and proposes a set of policies to mitigate the interconnected financial risks stemming from the pandemic and to steer economies toward a sustainable and equitable recovery. The data used in the WDR2022 are curated as a collection here.

World Development Report 2022

The World Settlement Footprint Collection includes country datasets describing the evolution of the built-area across the globe at a ~30m resolution.

World Settlement Footprint

Original Data Source:World Bank 2024 Digital Business Database (Zhu et al. 2022), based on data from Crunchbase, CB Insights, Pitchbook, and Bitter BridgeAccess date: 2025Data accessibility: Data is proprietary and cannot be shared publicly in the reproducibility package.The data contains name and description of a sample of 3,600 AI-related businesses in low- and middle-income countries. WDR 2026 team created the dataset using a large language model based on descriptions of 3,600 AI-related businesses in low- and middle-income countries, which shows the number of start-ups classified.

Classification of AI startups in developing economies

Original Data Source:World Bank 2024 Digital Business Database (Zhu et al. 2022), based on data from Crunchbase, CB Insights, Pitchbook, and Bitter BridgeAccess date: 2025Data accessibility: Data is proprietary and cannot be shared publicly in the reproducibility package.The data contains name and description of a sample of 3,600 AI-related businesses in low- and middle-income countries. WDR 2026 team created the dataset using a large language model based on descriptions of 3,600 AI-related businesses in low- and middle-income countries, which shows the number of start-ups classified.

AI startup classification in developing countries

Metadata