Week in Review

Hello,
Another busy week has allowed us to produce another very exciting week in review. This week highlights include the release of a new index, women and water, Nowcasting (economic term for ‘now’ and ‘forecasting’) and education in Latin America.

Measuring the Web’s Global Impact
On Wednesday, the World Wide Web Foundation launched the inaugural Web Index, a composite index designed to measure the social, economic and political impact of the Internet. The index combines over 80 indicators that measure access, affordability, institutional and policy environment and social and economic utility. And the top 5 ranks are:
1. Sweden
2. U.S.
3. UK
4. Canada
5. Finland

Women spend 40 billion hours collecting water (IPS 01.09.2012)
The 2012 report on the Millennium Development Goals found that 71 percent of the burden of collecting water for households falls on women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, women in sub-Saharan Africa spend an average of about 200 million hours per day collecting water.
See more and contribute to the Wikigender article on Women and Water Resource Management in Africa

Quote:
“The hope is that as you take the economic pulse in real time, you will be able to respond to anomalies more quickly.” - Hal Varian, Google Chief Economist

This quote comes from Hal Varian, speaking about the search data and the potential of Nowcasting at The Economist's Ideas Economy: Information 2012 event in San Francisco, California.

Number Crunch:
There are 117 million boys, girls and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean, 6.5 million of whom do not attend school.
Source: UNICEF/UNESCO 2012

That’s all from me this week, hope you can tune in again same time next week for another edition of the Week in Review.

Yours in Progress,
Philippa Lysaght