Worldbank Poverty

mcp-worldbank-poverty

World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) MCP.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1684+ live data sources.

Tools

Tool	Description
get_poverty	Official World Bank poverty & inequality estimates for a country (or all countries). Returns poverty headcount, poverty gap, poverty severity, Gini, mean & median welfare (income or consumption, $/day in 2017 PPP), income deciles, and population in poverty. Use povline to pick the international line: 2.15 (extreme poverty), 3.65 (lower-middle-income), 6.85 (upper-middle-income).
get_poverty_regional	Aggregated World Bank poverty estimates at the regional/group level (not per-country). Returns headcount, poverty gap, mean welfare, and total population in poverty for each group. group_by controls the aggregation: "wb" = World Bank geographic regions, "inc" = income groups (HIC/UMIC/LMIC/LIC), "none" = global total.
list_reference	Reference / metadata for the PIP dataset. table="versions" lists available data releases & PPP rounds; table="aux_list" lists all auxiliary tables; any other value (e.g. "countries", "regions", "poverty_lines", "indicators", "dictionary") returns that auxiliary table. Use to look up valid country codes, region mappings, or supported indicators.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "worldbank-poverty": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/worldbank-poverty/mcp"
    }
  }
}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/worldbank-poverty/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1684+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/get_poverty \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"country":"IND","year":"2020","povline":2.15}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/get_poverty. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "worldbank-poverty": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-worldbank-poverty"]
    }
  }
}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-worldbank-poverty

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Worldbank Poverty data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT