Emerging Nations Proceed With Caution

Andrew Burns, head of macroeconomics at the World Bank, told journalists in London: “Developing countries should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

Predicting significantly slower global growth in 2012 than it expected last summer even if the eurozone muddles through its crisis, World Bank economists said that if financial markets deny funds to eurozone economies, global growth would be about 4 percentage points lower than even these figures with poorer economies far from immune.

Read the entire article: World Bank Warns Emerging Nations

6,775,235,700

That's the world population 2009 according to Google who uses World Bank, World Development Indicators as its source (illustrated).

According to About.com Geography:  World population as of May 11, 2011 is 6,852,472,823.

What percent of the world population are you selling?  Do you think we will hit 7 billion by 2012 or sooner?

Related post(s) on worldly population issues.

Data Apps and Mash-Ups for the World

The World Bank is opening the doors to thousands of its global development indicators and inviting the public to use the data in mash-ups, smart phone applications, and other tech tools that can help support clean energy and fight poverty.

"This will allow policy makers, researchers, and civil society to track the impact of policies, develop new solutions, and measure improvements more accurately," says Shaida Badiee, director of the bank’s development research data group.

To encourage software developers, the bank is holding an “Apps for Development” contest with $45,000 in prizes and financial support. Entries are due by Jan. 10 and must include data from at least one of the bank’s data-sets and relate to one of the bank’s eight key development goals that range from environmental sustainability to reducing childhood mortality.

Sounds like this will move us a step closer toward solving some of the world's most pressing problems.

Learn more:  The Global Muckraker - International Consortium of Investigative Journalists