World Bank Projects Scraper

Scrape the World Bank Projects & Operations database — 20,000+ development projects worldwide. Search by keyword, country, region, status, or sector. Fetch project details, funding amounts, development objectives, and implementation data from the free World Bank API. No authentication or proxy required.

What this actor does

• Three modes: searchProjects, getProjectDetails, browseByCountry
• Keyword search across project names, objectives, and abstracts
• Filter by country, region, status, and lending sector
• Look up specific projects by their World Bank Project ID (e.g. P505244)
• Browse all projects for a specific country code
• Full financial data: total amount, IBRD/IDA commitments, lending project cost
• Project metadata: approval date, closing date, fiscal year, borrower, implementing agency
• Empty fields are omitted — no null pollution in your dataset

Output per project

Field	Description
projectId	World Bank project ID (e.g. P505244)
projectName	Full project title
status	Active, Closed, or Pipeline
country	Primary country name
countryCode	ISO-2 country code (e.g. RW)
countries	List of country names (multi-country projects)
countryCodes	List of ISO-2 codes (multi-country projects)
region	World Bank region name
approvalDate	Board approval date (YYYY-MM-DD)
closingDate	Project closing date (YYYY-MM-DD)
approvalFiscalYear	Fiscal year of approval
totalAmount	Total commitment in USD
lendingProjectCost	Total project cost in USD
ibrdCommitment	IBRD commitment in USD
idaCommitment	IDA commitment in USD (when non-zero)
sector	Lending instrument type
productLine	Product line (e.g. IBRD/IDA)
financingTypes	List of financing types (e.g. ["IBRD", "IDA"])
borrower	Borrowing entity (government ministry, etc.)
implementingAgency	Agency executing the project
teamLeader	World Bank team leader name(s)
objective	Project Development Objective (PDO) statement
abstract	Detailed project description
projectUrl	Direct link to project page on worldbank.org
recordType	Always "project"
scrapedAt	UTC ISO timestamp when the record was scraped

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	searchProjects	Operating mode
query	string	climate change	Keyword search (mode=searchProjects)
country	select	–	ISO-2 country code filter
region	select	–	World Bank region filter
status	select	–	Active, Closed, or Pipeline
sector	select	–	Lending instrument filter
projectIds	array	–	Project IDs to fetch (mode=getProjectDetails)
maxItems	integer	50	Max records to return (1–500)

Modes

• searchProjects (default) — Search the World Bank project database using keywords and optional filters for country, region, status, and sector. Returns up to maxItems matching projects.
• getProjectDetails — Fetch full details for one or more specific projects by their World Bank project ID (e.g. P505244). Supply a list in projectIds.
• browseByCountry — Retrieve all projects associated with a specific country ISO-2 code (set in country). Useful for getting a complete portfolio of projects for a country.

Example inputs

Search active climate projects in South Asia

{
  "mode": "searchProjects",
  "query": "climate resilience",
  "region": "South Asia",
  "status": "Active",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Get specific projects by ID

{
  "mode": "getProjectDetails",
  "projectIds": ["P505244", "P180864", "P176429"]
}

Browse all projects for India

{
  "mode": "browseByCountry",
  "country": "IN",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Search infrastructure projects in Africa

{
  "mode": "searchProjects",
  "query": "infrastructure road transport",
  "region": "Eastern and Southern Africa",
  "sector": "Investment Project Financing",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Use cases

• Development research — Analyze World Bank project portfolios by country, region, or sector
• Policy analysis — Track project approval trends, funding levels, and development objectives
• Country risk & finance — Monitor active IBRD/IDA lending commitments per country
• Academic research — Build datasets of development finance projects for statistical analysis
• NGO & consulting — Identify World Bank projects in specific sectors or geographies
• Competitive intelligence — Track development finance flows in target markets

Data source

Data is sourced from the World Bank Projects API — a free, publicly accessible API with no authentication required. The API provides data on IBRD and IDA-financed projects across 180+ countries.

FAQ

Do I need an API key or account? No. The World Bank Projects API is completely free and open. No registration, API key, or proxy is required.

How many projects are available? The database contains 20,000+ projects spanning decades of World Bank lending history.

What is the difference between totalAmount and lendingProjectCost? totalAmount is the World Bank's total commitment (IBRD + IDA financing). lendingProjectCost is the total estimated project cost, which may be higher if there is co-financing from the government or other sources.

What country codes should I use? Use ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes (e.g. IN for India, BD for Bangladesh, NG for Nigeria). The input field provides a dropdown with all supported country codes.

Can I get projects for multiple countries at once? Use mode=searchProjects without a country filter, or run multiple browseByCountry requests with different country codes.

Why are some fields missing from certain records? The World Bank API does not guarantee all fields are populated for every project. Empty fields are automatically omitted from the output to keep records clean.

How fresh is the data? The World Bank Projects API is updated regularly. scrapedAt in each record shows when the data was retrieved.