Elisa Liberatori Prati Chief Archivist, The World Bank Group Information Management & Technology Network, IMT OPENING GOVERNMENT: FROM DATA TO INFORMATION.

Elisa Liberatori PratiChief Archivist, The World Bank Group

Information Management & Technology Network, IMT

OPENING GOVERNMENT: FROM DATA TO INFORMATION

SDN FORUM MARCH 1, 2012

If you drive with me 6 hours NWof Washington, DC, you get to aplace that is difficult to believe itexists in the digital age….

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The Mine

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Inside the Mine…

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• 463 million pages of paper records (193,000 linear ft.) dating back to 1946• Stacked, the boxes would reach 7 times as high as Mt. Everest• 200 oral history interviews• 524 linear ft. photographic material• 100 linear ft. film reels• 30 linear ft. audio & video tapes• 110,000 digitized Bank documents & reports

…and growing!

The Mine Data

mining

?

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…and growing!

The Mine

x 7

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WHY do we keep archives?

To preserve evidence in Bank’s operationsfor transparency, accountability,effectiveness in decision making

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WHY? To preserve the Bank’sinstitutional memory

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WHY?For you to be able to write a

history of development basedon primary sources

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Policy and operational files, Courtesy of International Records Management Trust Photo Archive, London.

This picture is an example of public sector record keeping before a records management improvement program is undertaken.

11Policy and operational files, Courtesy of International Records Management Trust Photo Archive, London.

This picture is an example of public sector record keeping beforea records management improvement program is undertaken.

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THE WORLD BANK’S OPEN AGENDA BOB ZOELLICK

“Today the Bank remains the largest single source of development knowledge. But knowledge must be opened to all… This is democratizing development economics. This will forever change how we conduct development research.”

From Hubris to Humility, Speech given at Georgetown University, Sept 29, 2010

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2010 Access to Information Policy

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HTTP://WWW.WORLDBANK.ORG/WBACCESS

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?(Paper world equivalent…)

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Access to Information

Continued strong momentum sinceits launch in July 2010

• 28,000 documents disclosed on ext web (total = 100,000+)• 4 million pages viewed • 100,000 unique users/month

• 1,076 folders of records studied in Archives

BIC: “The World Bank’s Access to Information Policy is the gold standard for financial institutions”

AMS 10.11 Management of

Records - revised

• 98 % of staff completed mandatory online training module

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THE ELECTRONIC MINE

DOCUMENTS & REPORTS

122,000+ documents available to the public More than 100,000 unique users per month Available in multiple languages 800,000 documents downloaded during FY11

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OUR FONDS

www.worldbank.org/archives

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GREATEST HITS!OUR POPULAR RESEARCH TOPICS

Aswan Dam. Source: Fonds 1 Country Operational Files, 1946-1998, Egypt

  Bell Report and Bernard Bell. Source: Fonds 43 Records of Individual Staff

Members, Sub-fonds 2 Bernard Bell

  Columbia early project loans. Source: Fonds 1 Country Operational Files,

1946-1998, Colombia

Development Committee. Source: Fonds 47 Records of the Development Committee

Indus Basin. Source: Fonds 1 Country Operational Files, 1946-1998, Indus Basin

McNamara, Robert S. Source: Fonds 3 Records of the Office of the President, sub-fonds 4 McNamara, Fonds 59 Photo Service Records

Onchocerciasis / Riverblindness. Source: Fonds 1 Country Operational Files, 1946-1998, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and others, , Fonds 59 Photo Service Records

20HECTOR PRUD’HOMME NOTES OF EUGENE BLACK MEETINGS WITH B.K. NEHRU, MARCH 9, 10 AND 27, 1953.

Fonds 1, Country Operational Files, 1946-1998, India-Pakistan I.B.D. [Indus Basin Dispute], General Negotiations 1953 (III).

Indus Basin Water Agreement between India

and Pakistan

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MAP “SKET PETA KAB. LAMPUNG UTARA,” CA. 1980.

FONDS 84-05, PERSONAL PAPERS OF GLORIA DAVIS, INDONESIA TRANSMIGRATION PROGRAM SUBJECT FILE.

“Way Abung I – From the Project Director” ca. 1978.

Fonds 84-05, Personal papers of Gloria Davis, Indonesia transmigration program subject file, Way Abung (1). 

Indonesia Transmigration Projects

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WHY HISTORY? BOB ZOELLICK

“ History suggests questionsrather than supplied answers.”

Beyond Aid, Speech given at George Washington University, Sept 14, 2011

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“…it [my training in history] may have helped me in the use of evidence,… in insisting on evidence before I wrote and spoke, and before I believed what I read or heard…”

“…history study helped give me a time outlook. Everything has a background, which background led to where we are today and today is the beginning of tomorrow.”

Bank tenure 1947-1978; Oral History interview, 1991

WHY HISTORY? WILLIAM DIAMOND

24How and Why Does History Matter for Development Policy, Michael Woolcock, Simon Szreter (Univ of Cambridge), Vijayendra Rao. WB Policy Research Working paper 5425, Development Research Group, Poverty and Inequality Team, Sept 2010

History Matters! WB Research Department

• Open and sustain a constructive dialogue between history—understood as both “the past” and “the discipline”–

and development policy

• understanding causal mechanisms, contexts, and complex process of institutional change

• providing examples of historical research that support, qualify, or challenge the most influential research (by economists and economic historians) in contemporary development policy

• offering some general principles and specific implications that historians, on the basis of the distinctive content and

method of their research, bring to development policy debates.

FRUITS• poverty alleviation• sustainable development

FOLIAGE• effective decision-making• enforceable civil rights

TRUNK• information infrastructure

NUTRIENTS IN SOIL• information in records

ROOTS• information systems• record keeping systems for preserving evidence

Information,Records,Archives

SustainablePoverty Alleviation

Strategies

INFORMATION lies at the roots of development!© The World Bank Library & Archives of Development, 2003

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Elisa Liberatori PratiChief Archivist, The World Bank GroupManager, The World Bank Group Library & Archives of DevelopmentIMT Program Manager, Access to InformationInformation Management & Technology Network, IMT

[email protected]