Interesting thoughts. We've developed the UNEP GEO Data Portal which gives access in various ways to UN and other (selected) data, and allows to draw maps and graphs on-the-fly, too. Have a look, and let me know what you think... Thoughts, news ideas are almost welcome.

And yes, would be great to use Gapminder for the stats. But unfortunately it has been bought by Google and is not freely available as a tool to integrate into ones data portal...