Geocoding Aid

A collaborative effort between the World Bank, Development Gateway, and AidData are putting together a database showing exactly where WB aid projects are supposed to be happening (HT: Barder, link below). This is an effort to increase transparency and enable (web-connected) aid recipients to both know what is going on around them and monitor the efforts. There's a video* that interviews the (I'm guessing) undergrads from BYU, Georgetown, and few other prominent schools working on the project.

In the picture I snapped from the video, you see with green dots where aid projects actually are.
You can combine the data with tools like GoogleEarth to zoom in right to the village or the road or the building where services are supposed to be provided. One of the researchers commented how interesting it was to see the same village names over and over again while other villages are completely overlooked. Why is that, she wondered. So another great purpose is to identify where the aid has not yet gone and settle your next project there.

Barder recommends aidinfo’s paper Show Me The Money.



* - Warning: sound quality is terrible - terribly loud background piano, terribly variable, terrible staticky.