ICP at the World Bank Data Day 2019

The World Bank held its first Data Day on February 13, 2019 at its headquarters in Washington, DC.   The ICP Global Office joined their colleagues from the Bank’s Development Data Group and data experts and innovators from across Fortune 50 companies and key civil society organizations to present the latest thinking on data-driven development, and the programs and agendas that support this.

The 1000-plus visitors to the event were welcomed by Interim President and Chief Executive Officer of the World Bank Group, Kristalina Georgieva, and the Bank’s new Chief Economist, Pinelopi Goldberg. 

In her keynote speech, Ms. Goldberg  hailed the ICP as one of the most important public goods that the World Bank leads.  Her acknowledgement is one of many cementing the importance of program and its global partnership to both the functioning of the Bank and its role in the international development arena.

ICP Booth – What can you buy for $1?

The ICP booth in the World Bank atrium enticed visitors to find out more about the program by asking “What can you buy for $1?”.  Armed with identical miniature shopping baskets and an array of posters, leaflets and videos, the Global Office team chatted to a continuous stream of people about the basic concepts of purchasing power parities, what the data show and how PPPs can improve cross country analyses of poverty, well-being, economic volume, and prices and costs across a plethora of themes such as electricity pricing and costing the components of a nutritional basket of food.

The World Bank’s Facebook team visited the ICP Booth and lived-streamed an interview in Spanish about the program and the concept of purchasing power parities.

ICP Seminar – Understanding Purchasing Power Parities.

A seminar presented by ICP Global Office staff provided attendees with an understanding of how PPPs equalize the purchasing power of different currencies by eliminating the differences in price levels between countries; the coverage of PPPs across nearly 200 economies and the forthcoming publication of the 2017 results; the processes involved in data collection, validation and calculation, including the identification of a common basket of goods across all countries and the use made of national accounts expenditure data; the socio-economic analyses and comparisons made possible by PPPs and their essential role in tracking progress towards both the Bank's Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals; and how the frequency, timeliness and spatial coverage of PPPs will change in the coming years. Presentation slides are available here.