Characterization and use of the World Bank water and sanitation database

In 2010, the World Bank began its Open Data Initiative in an effort to publicize data that was previously limited to an audience within the organization, its associates, and subscribers. The goal of the initiative is to assure widespread access to a robust, comprehensive database that contains plentiful information regarding the world's developing economies, including information about projects in which the World Bank is, or was, involved. This capstone project was established in order to characterize the World Bank's Water and Sanitation (WATSAN) Database in an effort to clarify and map important components of the database, and then utilize the database to identify relevant predictors of project success, both in terms of return on investment for financial contributors and in terms of social progress for the loan recipient. However, due to discrepancies in data quality and comprehensiveness across projects, a comprehensive statistical analysis was not feasible. In an effort to make the aforementioned type of analysis possible, the capstone project focused on documentation of the current state of the WATSAN database's structure, the specific indicators available, inconsistencies that are found in the data, and a recommendation for an ideal future state of the database. This paper will outline the stages of documentation and analysis that was employed for the project.