Article by Keongmin Yoon, Olivier Dupriez, Bryan Cahill, and Katie Bannon: “The World Bank has long championed data transparency. Open data platforms, global indicators, and reproducible research have become pillars of the Bank’s knowledge work. But in many operational contexts, access to raw data alone is not enough. Turning data into insight requires tools—software to structure metadata, run models, update systems, and integrate outputs into national platforms.
With this in mind, the World Bank has released its first Open Source Software (OSS) tool under a new institutional licensing framework. The Metadata Editor—a lightweight application for structuring and publishing statistical metadata—is now publicly available on the Bank’s GitHub repository, under the widely used MIT License, supplemented by Bank-specific legal provisions.
This release marks more than a technical milestone. It reflects a structural shift in how the Bank shares its data and knowledge. For the first time, there is a clear institutional framework for making Bank-developed software open, reusable, and legally shareable—advancing the Bank’s commitment to public goods, transparency, Open Science, and long-term development impact, as emphasized in The Knowledge Compact for Action…(More)”.
