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Development Impact Group

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Overview

Development Impact Group Artificial Intelligence is pioneering the next frontier of impact evaluation, leveraging AI and machine learning to develop and implement research, interventions, and tools that address pressing global challenges. Operating with a commitment to maintaining the highest ethical standards and rigor, particularly considering vulnerable communities, Development Impact Group AI’s work has uncovered new, evidence-based approaches to predict food insecurity, mitigate hate speech and misinformation, advance conflict early warning systems, and address gender biases. Driving the next generation of impact evaluation, Development Impact Group AI’s latest solution extracts causal evidence from vast repositories of impact evaluation and economic research to empower decision-makers with personalized insights and transform data-driven policymaking. As AI continues to evolve, Development Impact Group AI's multidisciplinary efforts underscore its integral role in leveraging cutting-edge technology to advance social progress and sustainable development worldwide.

Partnerships

Advanced AI technology can help development practitioners, researchers, and policymakers enhance productivity, foster creativity, generate new insights, and effectively support communities. Development Impact Group AI collaborates with Google.org, Google’s philanthropic initiative, via Google’s Generative AI accelerator to ensure the World Bank harnesses AI’s potential to address key social and economic challenges by developing high-impact applications, empowering policymakers with AI-driven solutions, and streamlining development research.

Supported by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Development Impact Group is expanding its research and policy engagement in the media markets of India, Kenya, and Nigeria. This includes comprehensive content analyses of media consumed by Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW), development of monitoring tools, and impact evaluation research on media's influence on social norms and behaviors. Leveraging machine learning, the Development Impact group aims to automate content analysis and monitoring tools for broader accessibility. The Development Impact Group will also conduct policy dialogues to maximize the impact of this work in major entertainment hubs.

Development Impact Group AI’s most recent initiatives focus on the following:

Food insecurity continues to threaten the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of undernourished increased from ~580 million in 2012 to ~730 million in 2022 (FAO, 2024). Climate change, population growth, political instability, and economic disparities exacerbate this problem, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities in developing countries. Predicting these crises is crucial but hindered by incomplete or outdated data sources. By employing natural language processing techniques on news articles, Development Impact group AI pinpoints early signs of food crises, enhancing forecasts by up to 50% 12 months in advance. This provides extra time for proactive measures to be taken. Real-time news integration aids decision-making in data-scarce environments, improving humanitarian responses and saving lives. Future efforts include incorporating local languages to improve predictive accuracy and expand to conflict predictions.

View Publications

Predicting food crisis outbreaks using natural language processing of news streams

Predicting food crises using news streams | GitHub Repository

View Presentations

Food and Humanitarian Crises: Science and Policies for Prevention and Mitigation

Core Team

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    Data Scientist and AI Program Lead, Development Impact Group
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    Luis Eduardo San Martin
    Junior Data Scientist, Development Impact Group
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    Madeline Bassetti
    Consultant, UX Designer, Development Impact Group
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    Linxi Wang
    Consultant, Data Coordinator, Development Impact Group
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    Philipp Zimmer
    Consultant, Data Scientist and Policy Analyst, Development Impact Group
ImpactAI logo and tagline (Generating Insights for Global Development)

The World Bank's Development Impact Group is using generative AI to help policymakers and practitioners access development economics research and make better policy decisions.