@pipeworx/worldbank

Connect: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/worldbank/mcp · Install: one-click buttons

Tools: 6

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.

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.

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.”

Tools

• get_country — Get basic information about a country: full name, region, income level, capital city, and coordinates. Use ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 or alpha-3 country codes (e.g., “US”, “GBR”, “IN”).
• get_indicator — Get World Bank time-series data — economic, social, and development statistics — for ANY country worldwide (Spain, Brazil, Germany, Nigeria, Japan, etc.). PREFER for “unemployment rate in ”,
• get_population — Fetch annual total population (SP.POP.TOTL) for a country from the World Bank, defaulting to 2015–2024. Returns a year-by-year array of values. Shortcut for get_indicator.
• get_gdp — Fetch annual GDP in current USD (NY.GDP.MKTP.CD) for a country from the World Bank, defaulting to 2015–2024. Returns a year-by-year array of values. Shortcut for get_indicator.
• compare_countries — Compare a World Bank indicator across MULTIPLE countries in one call, returned ranked high→low. PREFER for “GDP per capita: US vs China vs Germany”, “rank the G7 by CO2 emissions”, “compare population
• country_co2_emissions — National CO2 emissions for ANY country worldwide, annual, from the World Bank (AR5 basis, excluding LULUCF). PREFER for “CO2 emissions of ”, “how much CO2 does emit”, “carbon emissi