Elisa Liberatori Prati Chief Archivist, The World Bank Group Information Management & Technology Network, IMT OPENING GOVERNMENT: FROM DATA TO INFORMATION SDN F ORUM M ARCH 1, 2012

If you drive with me 6 hours NW of Washington, DC, you get to a place that is difficult to believe it exists in the digital age….

The Mine 3

Inside the Mine… 4

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? 5

…and growing! The Mine x 7 6

WHY do we keep archives? To preserve evidence in Bank’s operations for transparency, accountability, effectiveness in decision making 7

WHY? To preserve the Bank’s institutional memory 8

WHY? For you to be able to write a history of development based on primary sources 9

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. 10

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. 11

T HE W ORLD B ANK ’ S O PEN A GENDA B OB Z OELLICK “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 Access to Information Policy 13

HTTP :// WWW. WORLDBANK. ORG /WBA CCESS 14

? (Paper world equivalent…) 15

Access to Information Continued strong momentum since its launch in July ,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 Management of Records - revised 98 % of staff completed mandatory online training module 16

T HE E LECTRONIC M INE D OCUMENTS & R EPORTS 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 17

O UR F ONDS 18

G REATEST H ITS ! O UR P OPULAR R ESEARCH T OPICS Aswan Dam. Source: Fonds 1 Country Operational Files, , 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, , Colombia Development Committee. Source: Fonds 47 Records of the Development Committee Indus Basin. Source: Fonds 1 Country Operational Files, , 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, , Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and others,, Fonds 59 Photo Service Records 19

H ECTOR P RUD ’ HOMME NOTES OF E UGENE B LACK MEETINGS WITH B.K. N EHRU, M ARCH 9, 10 AND 27, Fonds 1, Country Operational Files, , India-Pakistan I.B.D. [Indus Basin Dispute], General Negotiations 1953 (III). Indus Basin Water Agreement between India and Pakistan 20

M AP “S KET P ETA K AB. L AMPUNG U TARA,” CA F ONDS 84-05, P ERSONAL PAPERS OF G LORIA D AVIS, I NDONESIA TRANSMIGRATION PROGRAM SUBJECT FILE. “Way Abung I – From the Project Director” ca Fonds 84-05, Personal papers of Gloria Davis, Indonesia transmigration program subject file, Way Abung (1). Indonesia Transmigration Projects 21

W HY H ISTORY ? B OB Z OELLICK “ History suggests questions rather than supplied answers.” Beyond Aid, Speech given at George Washington University, Sept 14,

“…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 ; Oral History interview, 1991 W HY H ISTORY ? W ILLIAM D IAMOND 23

How 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. 24

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 Sustainable Poverty Alleviation Strategies INFORMATION lies at the roots of development! © The World Bank Library & Archives of Development,

26 Elisa Liberatori Prati Chief Archivist, The World Bank Group Manager, The World Bank Group Library & Archives of Development IMT Program Manager, Access to Information Information Management & Technology Network, IMT