downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 8259.38articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Bangladesh
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 60.9. Raise Learning first, at 28.4. Experimentation needs more evidence: confidence is 0.33.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Learning | 0.52 | 28.4 |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 30.6 |
| Building | 0.49 | 32.9 |
| Trust | 0.48 | 35.1 |
| Agency | 0.56 | 47.5 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 3.6 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.37 | 37.2 |
| Coordination | 0.40 | 56.6 |
These lists are the country's capability agenda, computed from the scores. Read the full agenda. It names comparable evidence from other countries and the 18 gaps in the registry.
Why this country is included: Added in the 9.0.0 completion, which takes every country of a million people or more that is measurable in all nine capabilities.
Anticipation30.6Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Bangladesh
Read Bangladesh beside up to three other countries, down to the indicator behind every row.
- Usable or good evidence
- Thin evidence, hollow point. The dashes open further as confidence falls.
- The point still sits at the score, because confidence never moves it.
- Click any axis to see every country on that dimension.
A score from 0 to 100 is a position inside the frame that all the benchmark countries set: zero is the weakest on a dimension and 100 is the strongest. A score of 10 puts a country near the floor of that frame and does not mean 10 percent of a capability.
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Coordination | 0.40 | 3 of 5 | 0.83 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.37 | 3 of 6 | 0.81 | +2.6(2) | 33.0 | -4.2 | |
| Trust | 0.48 | 5 of 7 | 0.82 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.49 | 4 of 6 | 0.77 | +4.6(2) | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +13.7(2) | 43.0 | +12.4 | |
| Learning | 0.52 | 3 of 4 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | -0.1(3) | no data | no estimate |
How to read this page
Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.
A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.
- direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
- capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
- downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
- perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.
Confidence
- very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
- thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
- usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
- good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.
Anticipation
How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
+13.7 over 10 years, from 16.9 in 2016 to 30.6 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 71.638index 0-100
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL)
- History
Government foresight capacity
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.
Long-horizon research commitments
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of new grants
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the share of R&D spending classed as basic research, which is the make-up of a spending stock, the construct D142 retired business R&D share for. OECD MSTI publishes that share for its members only, and UNESCO UIS no longer serves R&D by type of research (construct audit, 2026-10-02). The behaviour behind it is a funder committing to a horizon: a grant awarded for five years or more is a decision to wait for a result. Untried: no memo has triaged a grant register. National funders publish award lists one by one with their own durations, and commercial grant aggregators fail the inspectability rule. Wireable on a grant-level register with award and end dates, on one definition of a competitive public grant, for half the frame or more.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
R&D expenditureWorld Bank (GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS)
No value for this country. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: money committed to research is what a country spends, and spending it does not show the country reads the future well (D122).
Researchers in R&DWorld Bank (SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6)
No value for this country. Full-time-equivalent researchers per million people.
A condition, not scored: a standing stock of people who could investigate is what a country has, not a record of what they found (D122). Correlates with income but survives size normalization.
Secure internet serversWorld Bank (IT.NET.SECR.P6), 2024
527 per million people, rank 76 of 125. Servers using encryption in internet transactions, per million people.
A condition, not scored: a diffusion stock of digital adoption that money buys, not an act of anticipation (D122). Spans four orders of magnitude, so its rank is read on the published value and its correlations on the logged one.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 39.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Panelists B and C rightly note that the Cyclone Preparedness Programme is an organisation that has outlasted governments for five decades, which is exactly the durable capability I weight, so I move up three points; politicised statistics and thin research keep me below them.
- 44.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Hold. The whole panel agrees the Cyclone Preparedness Programme and Delta Plan 2100 are capability beyond endowment; I stay highest because the volunteer network is distributed preparation at a scale the others still treat as an exception rather than the core of the evidence. A's point on politicised statistics trims a point.
- 43.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold near 42 and move up one. The Cyclone Preparedness Programme with tens of thousands of community volunteers and Delta Plan 2100 are institutional conversion of scarce resources into preparedness, which is the capability this dimension targets and the opposite of buying outcomes. Research output is the floor and statistics are politicised, so I stay near A and below B's 45.
Agency
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.065per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 19.5days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 9count
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO)
- History
Adults doing digital tasks
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- ITU / UNESCO UIS (SDG 4.4.1, ICT skills by type)
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked whether adults can perform standard digital tasks, which reads a skill level, the kind of stock D122 moved out of the scores with internet users. It now counts the act: a person who did the task. It is not the internet users condition beside it, which counts access. Candidate: ITU ICT skills by type (SDG 4.4.1) through the UNESCO UIS API, probed 2026-10-02. Sent a message with an attached file reaches 33 of the 53 countries then in the frame, 25 at 2018 or later, with no United States, India or China and most of Africa and Central America missing; two other task items reach 31 and 16. The items are self-reported and the task list has changed between rounds. Wireable on one task observed for half the frame or more at 2018 or later.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 7.3mean 1-10
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
53.4 % of population, rank 98 of 125. Share of the population that used the internet in the last three months.
A condition, not scored: access to the basic tool of modern agency is what people have to act with, not a record of them acting (D122). Saturates near 95%, which compresses the top of the range.
Financial account ownershipWorld Bank (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), 2024
43.3 % aged 15+, rank 105 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2025
34.5 % of GDP, rank 74 of 124. Domestic credit provided to the private sector by financial corporations.
A condition, not scored: financial depth is a stock of money available to actors, not what they do with it (D122). High values can also signal a credit bubble, so more is not always better.
Coordination
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Government effectiveness
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_GE.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The WGI aggregate the opinions of experts and firms, and in this set the four WGI series correlate with each other between 0.93 and 0.98 while correlating with log GDP per capita at 0.91. That is one perception of national wealth counted in three dimensions. Cross-agency delivery records are the replacement and they are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Regulatory quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RQ.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Same measurement as government effectiveness, filed under a different name, correlating with it above 0.93. See D23 and A4.
Logistics performance
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The LPI is a survey of international freight forwarders, so it records how a country looks to global logistics firms. A small country with a small port scores low whatever its state can organise, which is artefact A9. Container throughput and border time are observable and stay. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 168hours
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 83.166percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
University-industry collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Innovation Index
- History
- no data
Note: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.696index 0-1
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2x_cspart)
- History
- one year
Public-private collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Customs clearance time for exportsWorld Bank (IC.CUS.DURS.EX), 2022
6.666 days, lower is better. Average number of days to clear direct exports through customs, as reported by manufacturing firms that export directly, in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.
Days a manufacturer that exports directly says its goods took to clear customs, from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. It is the time the border took on firms' own shipments, current where the Doing Business border time this capability scores is frozen at 2019. It is not scored for two reasons. The number of firms behind each country's figure is published only in the survey microdata, and on a proxy from the published tables 37 of the 53 countries in the frame when it was checked clear 30 exporting firms; Mexico, the Philippines, Israel and nine others may not. And the question changed: surveys fielded from 2024 also ask how long release took across all border agencies, and drop an answer where customs alone took longer, so a country surveyed on both sides of the change can move severalfold with nothing at its border changing. India reads 17.3 days in 2022 and 2.5 in 2025, on more than 9,000 firms each time. No country in the frame has two surveys on the new questionnaire yet. Income is not why it is left out: it barely tracks log GDP per capita.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Public Private Partnership Authority project portfolio
Bangladesh's Public Private Partnership Authority listed 81 projects in its portfolio as last updated on 19 August 2026, of which four were in operation (including Patenga Container Terminal, the NIKDU and Chittagong haemodialysis centres and two Info-Sarkar 3 rural broadband components), three were partly operating while still under construction (among them the Dhaka Elevated Expressway), and 10 were under construction.
7 of 81 portfolio projects (4 operational, 3 partial operation and construction), ppp projects in operation, fully or partly, 2026-08-19. 10 projects, ppp projects under construction, 2026-08-19. Public Private Partnership Authority Bangladesh, PPP projects list, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: A dedicated authority under the head of government screens line-ministry projects, runs procurement with technical assistance and viability gap funds, and takes them to the economic cabinet committee for approval and award.
Limits: The counts are ours, tallied from the stage column of the authority's project list, which the page says was last updated on 19 August 2026 and which was read on 2026-10-02; the page gives no totals, and it reports stages, not dates of financial close or of operation. Two of the four operating entries are components of one rural broadband project (Info-Sarkar 3), so the operating count overstates distinct partnerships by one. The authority promotes its own portfolio. The headline is how little has reached operation: 7 of 81 projects after some 16 years, with 24 still at feasibility study and 6 at conditions-precedent stage, so the record documents scale of activity more than delivery. Several listed projects are land leases for commercial development (shopping malls, textile mills on state land), not public services. The Dhaka Elevated Expressway opened in parts against long delays. A 2026 Invest Bangladesh Act appears on the same site and may reorganise the authority; its Bangla text could not be read in this session, so the record does not say whether the authority continues in its current form.
Trust
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Rule of law
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RL.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite correlating with control of corruption above 0.95 and with log GDP per capita at 0.83. Court throughput and case clearance rates are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Control of corruption
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_CC.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite. It measures reputation for corruption, which is not the same thing as corruption, and it tracks income closely. Prosecution and audit records are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 1442days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 22.989% of firms
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.665scale 0-4 (never to always)
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp)
- History
- one year
Intentional homicide rate
downstream outcomeretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataper 100,000 people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)
- History
- no data
Note: Added 2026-08-26 by D23 as the observable replacement for two retired WGI perception composites, and retired 2026-08-27 by D44 when the diagnostic built in D42 measured what it was doing. It raised this dimension's correlation with log GDP per capita by 0.288, from 0.096 to 0.385, the largest single wealth contribution anywhere in the model. It was added to fix wealth contamination and it was the wealth contamination. The dataset is sound and the objection is to what it measures here: homicide is driven heavily by organised crime, a society can be physically safe while trusting very little, and across this country set the variation it carries is mostly income. Behavioural trust measures remain a gap.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 12.9% agreeing
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- one year
Trust in public institutions
perception proxyno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% expressing confidence
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD Trust Survey / WVS
- History
- no data
Note: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability. The Joint EVS/WVS confidence battery (E069) reaches 37 countries from one release, and confidence in the courts (E069_17) is published beside Trust as a check under this id rather than scored: every item of the battery tested (courts, civil service, police, parliament and government) reads higher in the closed and electoral autocracies of the frame than in its democracies, which is deference as much as confidence (A13). The gap stays open for a measure that does not reward a court that cannot rule against the state. See D132.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 20.6% expressing trust
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- one year
Court case clearance rate
downstream outcomeno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of incoming cases
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- CEPEJ / OECD / national court statistics
- History
- no data
Note: Whether a court finishes what it starts, counted from case records rather than asked in a survey. D23 named it as the observable replacement for the two retired WGI composites and it has stayed unfilled since. CEPEJ publishes it for Council of Europe members and OECD for its own members, so no single publisher reaches this country set, and a harmonised series needs the project second source adapter. See D57.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Confidence in the courtsJoint EVS/WVS (E069_17), 2022
27.4 % a great deal, higher is better. Share of survey respondents saying they have a great deal of confidence in the justice system and courts, of the four answers a great deal, quite a lot, not very much and none at all, in the Joint EVS/WVS 2017 to 2022 survey round.
Confidence in the courts is the public half of what this capability asks: whether people expect the rules to be enforced when a stranger breaks them. It is not scored because the survey answer reads two things the number cannot tell apart. Where courts are independent, confidence is a judgment of how they perform. Where they answer to the state, it is also deference, and saying otherwise to an interviewer has a cost. In this frame the pattern runs the wrong way. India, the Philippines and Indonesia, all electoral autocracies in the V-Dem 2025 classification, lead on the share saying a great deal, and Vietnam and China, the two closed autocracies surveyed, lead once quite a lot is counted too. The ten electoral autocracies average 21.8 percent saying a great deal and the two closed autocracies 28.1, against 13.6 for liberal and 8.4 for electoral democracies. Scored, it would rank highest the states whose courts are least able to rule against them. Income is not why it is left out: the share correlates about -0.18 with log GDP per capita. The value is the share saying a great deal; the share saying quite a lot is in the source note.
Learning
How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.464index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 6.415% of firms
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Eurostat / OECD PIAAC
- History
- no data
Note: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.201ratio to world average
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2024
23.7 % gross, rank 89 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2024
2 % of GDP, rank 112 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2019
4 % of secondary, rank 96 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
National adult literacy projects of the Bureau of Non-Formal Education, and their erosion
Bangladesh's Bureau of Non-Formal Education ran national adult literacy projects that reached 9.23 million learners aged 11 to 45 under the Total Literacy Movement project of 1997 to 2003, then 4.46 million aged 15 to 45 under the Basic Literacy Project (64 districts) of 2014 to 2022. Its only programme for learners above school age the bureau lists after June 2022 is a pre-vocational course that reached 4,198 people aged 14 to 24 in 2025-26.
4,459,000 learners (published as 44.59 lakh), learners reached, basic literacy project (64 districts), feb 2014 to jun 2022, 2014-02/2022-06. 9,225,000 learners (published as 92.25 lakh), peak: learners reached, non-formal education project-4 (total literacy movement), apr 1997 to jun 2003, 1997-04/2003-06. Bureau of Non-Formal Education, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Government of Bangladesh: implemented projects table, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Bureau of Non-Formal Education used development-budget projects to fund literacy courses, delivered by district administrations or contracted NGOs, in every district. When a project window closed, delivery stopped until the next project was approved, and after 2022 no adult-scale successor followed.
Limits: These are the implementing bureau's own counts of learners it reports as reached. The page does not say how a learner was counted or whether literacy was tested. The numbers cover multi-year project windows and not the last 12 months, which is what the indicator asks. Spread over each window they are small against the adult population: roughly 0.5 million a year for 2014 to 2022 and 1.5 million a year for 1997 to 2003, both converted from lakh by us. The peak is itself a shortfall: the 1997 to 2003 project reached 92.25 lakh against a target of 228.89 lakh, about 40 percent. A hostile reviewer would say most of the fall reflects fewer illiterate adults to reach, since primary enrolment rose over the period, and not lost capacity. Nothing here measures that need, so the erosion is in delivery scale and not in a participation rate. The projects run as separate time-bound windows with gaps between them, so calling them one delivery is our reading. Both age bands include non-adults: the 1997 to 2003 project counted learners from age 11 and the 2014 to 2022 project from age 15, so part of each count is children and adolescents. The 2025-26 figure is a different course for ages 14 to 24 and is not a like-for-like successor. Basic Literacy Project teaching was contracted to NGOs. The page is a Bengali table on a government portal, and the values are read off its rows.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-0.1 over 10 years, from 1.6 in 2016 to 1.5 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
+0.2 over 20 years, from 1.3 in 2006 to 1.5 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
+1.1 over 30 years, from 0.7 in 1996 to 1.8 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 74per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 10831per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1338per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1021660per million people
- Year
- 2026. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv)
- History
- no data
Venture deals
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD / national VC associations
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The id keeps its first name so evidence records, links and published files still resolve. The row asked for venture capital deployed as a share of GDP, a level of financial depth of the kind private credit is (D122). A count of first rounds counts attempts started with outside risk money, which is what this capability asks about, and a large round counts once. Candidates, none wireable: the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard carried venture capital for 6 of the 16 countries the frame held on 2026-08-26, as amounts in national currency, latest year 2022, with Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore absent (D21); national venture capital associations publish counts on their own definitions; commercial deal databases cover the world and are not inspectable (D10). Wireable on an inspectable deal count with one definition of a first round for half the frame or more. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.
Early-stage entrepreneurial activity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no data% aged 18-64
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- no data
Note: From the GEM Adult Population Survey, entered by hand because GEM has no open API. TEA counts every new business, so necessity self-employment scores the same as a funded startup, which is why Chile and Argentina sit above the United States here. Read it as how many people are trying, not as how much value the attempts create. GEM does not run every economy every year: Singapore last took part in 2014 and the recency term marks that value down hard.
Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% not deterred
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
- History
- no data
Note: Stored as 100 minus the published GEM fear of failure rate, so the direction matches the rest of the registry. GEM measures that rate among adults who already see good opportunities, not among all adults, so the denominator differs from the label. Attitudinal: bankruptcy law and time to discharge would be the observable substitute and are still worth wiring beside it.
Firms through regulatory sandboxes
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no datafirms per million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national regulators
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.
University spinouts
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national TTO associations
- History
- no data
Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.
Business share of R&D
capability inputretired, see notes- Raw value
- no data% of R&D
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD MSTI / RICYT
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.778% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 16.7% of unemployed
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- one year
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.393index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.1% of products not exported competitively at the start
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ))
- History
- one year
Disaster preparedness and recovery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- INFORM / UNDRR
- History
- no data
Note: No source observes a country preparing for or recovering from a real shock. INFORM publishes its lack of coping capacity apart from hazard and exposure, but that dimension averages government self-assessments and governance perception indices with stocks such as roads, phones and physicians, which is the perception layer D23 retired plus conditions money buys (D122). Sendai and WHO reporting are governments grading themselves. A warning-reach survey item is a check candidate. See the disaster preparedness memo.
Institutional responsiveness
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Labour force participationWorld Bank (SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS), 2025
61.3 % aged 15+, rank 100 of 125. Share of the working-age population in the labour force.
A condition, not scored: how much of the population is in the labor force at all is what a country has to reallocate, a level set by norms, schooling and age, not a record of it reallocating (D141). Participation norms confound it, especially for India. Adaptability reads reallocation through long-term unemployment and export diversification instead.
Fixed broadband subscriptionsWorld Bank (IT.NET.BBND.P2), 2024
8.1 per 100 people, rank 81 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2023
7.9 % of output, rank 48 of 117. Power lost in transmission and distribution, including unbilled use.
A condition, not scored: the state of the grid, and whether its operator can bill what it delivers, is infrastructure a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D141). Read it beside broadband, the other installed network beside Adaptability.
Informal employmentILOSTAT (DF_SDG_0831_SEX_ECO_RT), 2024
84 % of employment, rank 77 of 102. Informal employment as a share of total employment, SDG indicator 8.3.1.
A condition, not scored: how much work carries no contract, registration or social protection describes the labor market a country reallocates through, not it reallocating (D150). Read it beside the unemployment rate: where most work is informal, a person who loses a job takes any work within weeks, so a low rate is not a fluid market. Its direction for Adaptability cannot be defended, since informal work is both the slack that absorbs a shock and the precarity that keeps a worker from moving up, so the rank orders values and is not a verdict. Comparability is weak: the European values come from an income survey (EU-SILC) with a proxy definition, and the rest from labor force or household surveys processed by the ILO. ILOSTAT has no value for the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, China, the Philippines or Cuba, and some values are old (Haiti and Nicaragua 2012).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Cyclone Preparedness Programme
Before Cyclone Remal made landfall on 26 May 2024, Bangladesh's government-run cyclone early warning and evacuation system moved about 0.8 million people into 9,424 evacuation shelters across 19 districts. The UN-coordinated response plan records 16 deaths among 4.6 million people affected.
800,000 people, people pre-emptively evacuated to shelters ahead of cyclone remal landfall, 2024-05. 16 deaths, lives lost in cyclone remal (government assessment as reported in the plan), 2024-05. UN Resident Coordinator's Office and Humanitarian Coordination Task Team, Bangladesh: Cyclone Remal Humanitarian Response Plan (June to December 2024), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The government took over the cost of a Red Crescent volunteer warning network in 1973 and ran it jointly with the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society. Village volunteers relay meteorological department signals door to door and move people into shelters before landfall.
Limits: The evacuation and death figures are the government's own preliminary counts, repeated in a UN appeal document whose job is to raise funds. They are not an independent audit. The figures cover one cyclone, and Remal's death toll depended on its track, timing and surge as well as on preparedness. The plan credits the Cyclone Preparedness Programme with helping develop the warnings, but it does not attribute the evacuation to it alone: district administrations, shelters built under other programmes and anticipatory-action partners all took part. The plan states no baseline, so the record shows one storm's outcome and not a trend. The same document records 4.6 million people affected and 173,866 houses damaged or destroyed, so the system protected lives far more than it protected housing and livelihoods. The construct also covers recovery, which this number does not show. The figure sits inside a PDF.
COVID-19 frontloading of old age, widow and disability allowances
Bangladesh's Department of Social Services paid old age, widow and disability allowance entitlements early from 25 March 2020 to 30 June 2020, reaching about 4.36 million beneficiaries through its digital government-to-person payment system, and the World Bank reimbursed US$165.84 million within 16 days of the government's July 2020 request.
4.36 million beneficiaries, beneficiaries receiving cash transfers financed under the covid-19 contingent emergency component, 2020-06. 16 days, days from the government's request to full disbursement of the emergency financing, 2020-08-12. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Bangladesh Cash Transfer Modernization Project (P160819), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The social services department advanced payment of existing allowances through the government-to-person system that pays straight into beneficiaries' bank and mobile money accounts, and a contingent emergency component in an existing World Bank loan refinanced the outlay after the fact.
Limits: The figures are in a PDF: the 4.36 million in paragraph 44 (page 10) and indicator I.11, and the dates in Annex 6 (page 31). The World Bank financed the project and the ICR praises its own instrument: the 16 days measure how fast the Bank reimbursed spending already made, not how fast the government acted, since the financing was retroactive for transfers paid from 25 March to 30 June 2020. The government's own change was modest: it paid existing beneficiaries of existing allowances early and through mobile money, and the source reports no new beneficiaries; other COVID-19 transfers paid outside these allowances are not covered by this record. The ICR also records the limits of shock response: Component 5, a cash transfer for people injured in the 2024 uprising, had policies and systems in place but was never paid, because the government's prefinancing did not arrive, and the allocation was cancelled. The poverty database meant to target new shocks (the National Household Database) never became usable.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+4.6 over 10 years, from 34.1 in 2016 to 38.7 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 22.441% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.539% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2018. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
- History
Logistics infrastructure quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.INFR.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. An LPI sub-index, so the same freight-forwarder survey as logistics performance and the same problem. Electricity connection speed stays as the observable infrastructure measure in this dimension. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 53.713score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.434index
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD)
- History
Large project delivery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% overrun
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: The single best measure of execution capability and there is no comparable international dataset. Assembling one is a defensible Envisioning project. Building mixes industrial output with state delivery capacity, and this indicator carries the delivery side: the other six indicators cannot see a national programme that was delivered. Documented deliveries are recorded in data/evidence and never scored, see D20.
Firm scale-up rate
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD DynEmp
- History
- no data
Note: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Output per workerWorld Bank (SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD), 2025
21,197 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 89 of 123. GDP per person employed, constant purchasing power parity.
A condition, not scored: output per worker is income per worker, the wealth the benchmark tests capability against, so it is published beside Building as context (D122).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Bangladesh's Bridge Authority completed the 6.15 km Padma road-rail bridge with government funds. It opened to traffic on 26 June 2022 at a reported actual cost of Tk 30,770 crore, six and a half years after the 31 December 2015 completion date in the 2010 Asian Development Bank appraisal, which had costed the project at $2,915 million.
30,770.14 Tk crore (published as 3,077,013.55 lakh taka), actual project cost reported by the bangladesh bridge authority, 2024-06. 2,915 US$ million, August 2010 prices, appraised total project cost and completion date, adb report and recommendation of the president (completion 31 dec 2015), 2010-11. Bangladesh Bridge Authority, Bridges Division, Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges: Padma Bridge project page, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: After its external co-financing package changed, the government kept the Bridge Authority as executing agency and paid for the bridge from its own budget. The Authority revised the project document as costs rose and opened the road deck in 2022, with rail running on the lower deck since.
Limits: Neither source publishes an overrun percentage. Converting the ADB appraisal at the RRP's own rate of Tk 70.11 per dollar gives about Tk 20,440 crore, so the actual cost is about 51 percent higher. That figure is our computation, and it mixes a 2010 dollar estimate with a taka outturn after more than a decade of taka depreciation and inflation, so much of the gap is currency and price level, not overrun. The ADB estimate includes $99 million of financing charges and appraised a co-financed project. The bridge was built with government funds, as the Bridge Authority page states, after that financing structure changed, so the two figures do not describe the same contract package. Against the government's own revised estimates on the same page, the outturn is about 5 percent below the Tk 32,306 crore figure and about 2 percent above the Tk 30,193 crore figure, which is why the cost record depends on which baseline is chosen. The Bridge Authority page is itself inconsistent: it lists two different estimates under the third revised project document. The schedule slip is clearer: an appraised completion of December 2015 against road opening in June 2022 and project closure in June 2024. The started year is the project start the Bridge Authority states, before main construction contracts were let.