World Bank Group encourages the use of open source

Inclusive collaboration

Published on: 05/07/2019 Last update: 08/07/2019 News Archived

The World Bank Group recommends governments use open technology - open source, open data, open standards and open innovation - to enable open collaboration and inclusive development ecosystems. Stela Mocan, who leads the group’s technology and innovation lab, says this lets governments build future-proof digital infrastructures and service-delivery platforms.

Stela Molcan, leading the technology and innovation lab at the World Bank Group, presenting at the Sharing & Reuse Conference 2019 in Bucharest — Stela Molcan, who leads the technology and innovation lab at the World Bank Group, speaking at the Sharing & Reuse Conference 2019 in Bucharest.

Opening the Sharing & Reuse Conference in Bucharest on 11 June, Ms Mocan promoted the use of open technology “to learn faster from one another, to co-create from a global pool of talent and digital skills, and to innovate.”

According to Ms Mocan, the World Bank Group is increasingly sharing the source code of the software solutions that it develops. The group started sharing code on GitHub in early 2014. Since then it has published 41 projects, including tools for analysing data on development and urbanisation.

Open source program office

The World Bank Group’s “Open Source Software Working Group” drives the adoption of open source software at the organisation. This includes an open source program office, helps with procedures and policies, provides training, and helps raise awareness and share knowledge.

Open source software is used across the organisation, from Linux servers in the data centre and the Drupal content management system to Angular and Node.js for the development of web applications. On workstations, the World Bank Group uses Google’s Chrome, which is based on the open source Chromium project.

In 2016, the World Bank Group made “Use open standards, open data, open source and open innovation” one of its nine digital principles. The group consists of five financial organisations (one of which is the World Bank) whose collective aim is to end extreme poverty.

The Sharing & Reuse Conference 2019 was organised by the European Commission’s ISA² Programme in collaboration with the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council. The ISA² Programme also runs the open source observatory (OSOR) and the Joinup eGovernment collaboration platform.

More information:

Presentation by Stela Mocan
World Bank Group digital principles
World Bank Group on Github
OSOR news item

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