World Bank — Development Indicators and Country Data

The World Bank Open Data API. Thousands of development, economic, social, and demographic indicators for every country. Time series going back decades. The canonical source for cross-country comparisons of poverty, education, health, gender, environment, infrastructure. Free, no auth.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1857+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Why this matters for AI agents

For development questions, cross-country comparisons of social indicators, or any "how does country X compare on indicator Y" question, the World Bank's database is the right starting point. Complements IMF (macro/fiscal) with development-specific coverage (WDI, EdStats, GenderStats, etc.).

Common flows:

• Indicator lookup. "GDP per capita PPP for India" → World Bank indicator NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD for India.
• Country comparison. Same indicator across multiple countries.
• Theme browsing. Education indicators, health indicators, environment indicators, etc.

Auth

None. World Bank Open Data is fully public, free.

Indicator code structure

World Bank indicator codes follow a domain.theme.metric pattern:

Search the catalog when you don't know the code.

Country and country-group codes

World Bank uses ISO 3-letter codes (USA, BRA, IND) plus aggregate codes:

• WLD — World
• EUU — European Union
• LMC — Lower middle income
• OED — OECD members
• SSA — Sub-Saharan Africa

Aggregate codes are useful for "how does X compare to its peer group?" questions.

Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI)

The World Bank also publishes the Worldwide Governance Indicators — six governance-quality dimensions per country, useful as country-risk context alongside event/news data: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. These live in a separate World Bank source database from the general development indicators above, under codes like GOV_WGI_CC.EST (Control of Corruption, governance estimate) and GOV_WGI_CC.SC (same dimension, 0–100 percentile-style score) — reachable through this pack's existing get_indicator / compare_countries tools, but unguessable without knowing the code, so use the dedicated get_governance_indicators tool for a single country's full six-dimension snapshot (latest year + prior year, for trend).

Each .EST estimate runs approximately -2.5 (weakest) to +2.5 (strongest); the matching .SC code is a 0–100 percentile-style score, higher meaning stronger governance relative to other countries scored that year.

Common pitfalls

• Indicator deprecation. World Bank periodically retires/replaces indicators. The API marks deprecated ones; prefer current ones for new analysis.
• Coverage gaps. Not every country reports every indicator every year. The API returns nulls for missing data. Compute aggregates carefully.
• Vintages. Indicator values can be revised. Cite the vintage if precision matters.
• Real vs nominal. Many financial indicators come in both nominal (current dollars) and real (constant dollars). The .CD suffix is current dollars; .KD is constant.
• PPP vs market exchange rate. Cross-country GDP comparison should use PPP for most "how rich is X" questions; market rates for "what does X export" questions.
• Data freshness. World Bank consolidates from member-country reporting; lag varies. Most recent year for many indicators is 1–2 years prior. Check data availability before promising "current."

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "worldbank": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/worldbank/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/worldbank/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1857+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/worldbank_get_country \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"country_code":"US"}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/worldbank_get_country. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Run it from npm

@pipeworx/mcp-worldbank is a local stdio bridge to the Pipeworx gateway: your MCP client starts it with npx, and it forwards every call to the same https://gateway.pipeworx.io/worldbank/mcp endpoint shown above. It needs network access; there is no offline mode.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "worldbank": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-worldbank"]
    }
  }
}

Without a key it calls anonymously, capped at 50 calls a day. A free account raises that to 200 a day: get a key at https://pipeworx.io/signup and add "env": { "PIPEWORX_API_KEY": "<your key>" } to the server entry. The key is sent as a Bearer token, the same way a hosted connection sends it, so calls are metered and billed exactly as they are there.

It lists only this pack's tools by default. Set PIPEWORX_META_TOOLS=1 to also list ask_pipeworx and the other gateway-wide tools.

Behind an HTTPS proxy: Node's built-in fetch does not read HTTPS_PROXY by default. Newer Node releases honour it when NODE_USE_ENV_PROXY=1 is set; check your Node version's documentation.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Worldbank data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT