Final Project Proposal

As we're aware from the fall, my studies involve the combination and interaction of Geography and Economics, of which I am most interested in Economic Growth and Development. A critical component in understanding and developing policy for economic development involves the use of numbers and statistics. However as Morten Jerven in his book Poor Numbers (2013) describes, there is a prevalent mismatch in how the various statistical agencies of African countries conduct their data collection. That is to say, they each have different parametrics and take into account different variables when formulating key economic indicators such as per capita GDP. This issue extends into international institutions such as The World Bank, as the indexes put out by the various institutions will return different results. For example as Jerven describes, “The World Bank ranks Mozambique as the eighth poorest country, while Madison places it among the twelve richest economics” (p. 19).

This said, for my final project in Advanced Digital Cartography, I am interested in visually illustrating the differences that the three development indexes put out by Madison, The World Bank, and the Penn World Tables. Because the topic is geographical in nature, concerning sub-Saharan Africa, the use of an interactive map would be appropriate. This map would enable the user to see the differences that each institution’s data set depicts of the economic health of the sub-Saharan region.

For the technical specifics of the interactive map there will be several features involving the use of the ArcGIS, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Flash software. Among them will be a splash screen to serve as an introduction, as we made in Lab Seven, which will give the audience a brief overview of the topic and additional information from Jerven’s book. Following that, the audience will then be able to move onto the main feature which is the map of Africa alongside three buttons, such as we made in Lab Four, that will toggle a visualization of the rankings given by each institution. This visualization will appear in the form of a Choropleth based on the per capita GDP of each of the 45 countries as they appear in the table found in Poor Numbers. Initially the country’s names will not be labeled, however as the user moves their cursor over the boundaries of the country, the name will then appear. Additionally if the user then clicks on the country, information about the country as described by the CIA World Fact Book as well as a time series chart showing the growth (or decline) of per capita GDP as described by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will appear in a side bar.

My production schedule for this project would be to first organize the data in a spreadsheet, then to locate a high quality base map. After which will be to design and produce the introductory splash screen, and then to start working on the coding and the translation of the data from the spreadsheet to the actual map. The biggest issue I foresee will be the artistic elements of the project. Unfortunately my skills of an artist are rather limited which is why I hope to initially find a good base map to work off of. Otherwise the coding should be fairly straightforward, however tedious it may be.

Citation
Jerven, M. (2013). Poor numbers: how we are misled by African development statistics and what to do about it. Cornell University Press.

Inspiration

IMF Data Mapper

Poor Numbers