In mountainous areas of Pakistan or far-flung villages in Sri Lanka, finding reliable economic information is extremely difficult. The World Bank’s solution has been to send surveyors to study the conditions on the ground, which is an expensive, time-consuming, and imprecise task. The resulting dearth of data leaves governments, aid groups, and researchers unsure of where to put resources that can be critical to helping the world’s most impoverished areas.
The World Bank is now turning to the sky for help. The Washington-based organization, an international financial institution and economic researcher, is studying pictures pulled from satellites orbiting the earth to help identify areas of extreme poverty. Under a new pilot program, it will use software developed by Silicon Valley startup Orbital Insight to scour the images for clues. If reliable, the data could influence decisions about where the World Bank allocates its more than $100 billion worth of loans each year.