downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3269.86articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Ghana
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 54.1. Raise Anticipation first, at 26.1. Shared Purpose needs more evidence: confidence is 0.20.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 26.1 |
| Building | 0.55 | 29.0 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Purpose | 0.20 | 39.0 |
| Trust | 0.29 | 70.7 |
| Experimentation | 0.31 | 5.3 |
| Coordination | 0.39 | 79.2 |
| Agency | 0.41 | 50.5 |
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.
Anticipation26.1Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Ghana
Read Ghana 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.
| Coordination | 0.39 | 3 of 5 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.29 | 3 of 7 | 0.83 | no trend | 55.0 | -15.7 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Learning | 0.54 | 3 of 4 | 0.78 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.41 | 3 of 5 | 0.72 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.20 | 2 of 6 | 0.63 | no trend | 45.0 | +6.0 | |
| Building | 0.55 | 4 of 6 | 0.88 | -0.7(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +6.9(2) | 27.0 | +0.9 | |
| Experimentation | 0.31 | 4 of 9 | 0.75 | no trend | 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?
+6.9 over 10 years, from 19.2 in 2016 to 26.1 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
- 65.738index 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), 2010
0.38 % of GDP, rank 67 of 118. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
The value is from 2010, more than 15 years old.
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), 2015
87.5 per million people, rank 90 of 114. 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
48.9 per million people, rank 109 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
- 26.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Panelist B's digital 2021 census is evidence of a functioning statistical institution, so I move up one to 26. The NDPC's long-term plan has little binding force, and the 2022 default, dumsor power crises and unmanaged galamsey pollution show foreseeable risks left unprepared.
- 28.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
A functioning statistical service and the digital 2021 census are real, and chiefly and community land planning add local foresight. The 2022 default and power crises, which A and C both stress, were foreseeable and unmanaged, so I come down two points toward the panel.
- 27.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
The 2022 default and unmanaged galamsey water pollution show foreseeable risks left unaddressed. Statistics are mid-range for the income level, so I hold near the indicator and the panel's middle.
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
- 1.37per 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
- 13days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 8count
- 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.
Perceived control over life
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no datamean 1-10
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- no data
Note: A perception: the publisher-weighted mean, on a 1 to 10 scale, of how much freedom of choice and control respondents feel they have over the way their life turns out, from the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. It observes the felt capacity to act, not action. The table prints the mean to one decimal and no top-box share, so the row stores the mean and ties are common. Fieldwork years differ by up to six years: the 37 countries emitted were surveyed between 2017 (eight, the US among them) and 2023 (India), and every value is stamped with the release year 2022. Response style on 10-point scales differs across cultures, and a closed autocracy can read high: Vietnam and Nicaragua sit near the top of the frame. Countries with separate EVS and WVS samples (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands) are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D127 and A15.
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
72.2 % of population, rank 84 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
81.2 % aged 15+, rank 55 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), 2024
8.9 % of GDP, rank 119 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
- 108hours
- 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
- 105.824percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2022. 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
- 0.893index 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), 2023
7.53 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.
Sankofa Gas Project (Offshore Cape Three Points)
Ghana structured the Sankofa offshore gas development as a public-private deal in which Eni and Vitol invested and the state oil company GNPC bought the gas under take-or-pay terms backed by an IDA payment guarantee, mobilising US$4,653 million of private capital and bringing first gas to power plants in 2018.
4,653 US$ million, private sector capital mobilized for the sankofa gas field development, 2018. 90 million standard cubic feet per day, average daily gas off-take in 2019, against take-or-pay volume of 170 mmscfd, 2019. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR 147538-GH, Ghana Sankofa Gas Project (P152670), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Government of Ghana and GNPC contracted to buy domestic gas from a privately financed offshore field on take-or-pay terms, and the World Bank guaranteed those payments so that private sponsors and banks would commit capital to a sub-Saharan gas project.
Limits: The capital was private and the build was done by the Eni-Vitol consortium; Ghana's institutional move was the deal structure and the offtake, and that side performed worst. GNPC could not pay: arrears reached US$192 million by March 2020 and the sponsors drew US$191.6 million on the letter of credit backed by the IDA guarantee, so the public half of the partnership needed a World Bank backstop within two years of first gas. Off-take in 2018 and 2019 was a fraction of the 170 mmscfd the state contracted to take or pay for, because the pipeline interconnector to the eastern market was late and demand in the west was too small, which means Ghana paid for gas it did not use. The source is the World Bank's own completion report on its own guarantee, written in 2020, and its figures are not published as a machine-readable series; the source stops in mid-2020. One deal, however large, says little about the frequency of public-private delivery the indicator asks for.
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
- 710days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 16.957% of firms
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.096scale 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.
Generalised interpersonal trust
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% agreeing
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- no data
Note: Share answering that most people can be trusted in the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. The adapter uses the publisher-weighted country results, emits only countries with one survey row, and holds countries with separate EVS and WVS samples until the respondent-level weights can be pooled reproducibly. See D57 and D64.
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.
Cooperation beyond the in-group
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% expressing trust
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- no data
Note: The distinction that makes this dimension worth measuring: whether trust reaches a person with no tie to the respondent. Generalised trust asks about "most people", which a respondent can fill with their own circle; this item names the stranger. China is the clearest case, high on most people and low on a person met for the first time. The value is the publisher-weighted share answering trust completely plus the share answering trust somewhat, the one sum of two printed columns the adapter stores, exact to about 0.1, over all respondents including don't know and no answer. EVS and WVS ask the same question on the same four-point scale; where one country has both samples, the WVS share is a median 2.2 points higher. Trust in people of another nationality (G007_36_B), which the row once also named, is left out because it reads attitudes to foreigners as much as trust. Fieldwork runs from 2017 to 2023 and every value carries the release year 2022. Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D140.
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.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 55.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I hold at 55: courts that bind the state and peaceful alternations since 2000 are institutional trust at the top, while firm bribery near 17 percent and petty judicial corruption weaken the channel cooperation runs through. Panelist B's susu and hometown associations operate largely within identity groups.
- 56.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Court compliance and peaceful alternations since 2000 show institutional trust, and susu savings groups, churches and hometown associations sustain cooperation beyond kin. Firm bribery near 17 percent and low Afrobarometer generalised trust are fair points from A and C, so I trim two points.
- 53.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.30
Court compliance and peaceful alternation are meaningful at this income level, but firm bribery near 17 percent and low Afrobarometer generalised trust weigh against. Susu and hometown associations are cooperation mostly within identity groups, so I stay near the bottom of the panel's range.
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
- 0.45index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 49.842% of firms
- Year
- 2023. 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
- 1.429ratio 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
21.3 % gross, rank 93 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), 2022
2.9 % of GDP, rank 97 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
2.7 % of secondary, rank 104 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 Functional Literacy Programme, and its erosion
Ghana's Non-Formal Education Division enrolled 312,907 adults in a single National Functional Literacy Programme batch in 2003-2005, and after donor funding ended in 2006 the government-funded batches shrank to 14,029 learners in the 2014-2016 batch.
14,029 learners enrolled per batch, learners enrolled in nflp local-language batch 19 (2014/16), 2014-2016. 312,907 learners enrolled per batch, learners enrolled in nflp batch 9 (feb 2003/2005), the largest single batch, 2003-2005. Ministry of Education, Ghana, Education Sector Performance Report 2018 (hosted by the National Development Planning Commission), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Ministry of Education's Non-Formal Education Division ran 21-month local-language literacy classes in every region through volunteer facilitators, scaled them with an IDA credit to about 200,000 to 300,000 enrolments per batch, and then carried the programme on a government budget line that funded a fraction of that after 2006.
Limits: The two numbers come from two different Ministry of Education reports, and both are administrative enrolment counts reported upward by district supervisors; the 2013 report says monitoring visits to verify figures had not been possible since 2010 for lack of funds, and the 2018 report restates Batch 18 at 44,730 where the 2013 report had 51,257, so the series is revised without explanation. A batch runs about 21 months and batches overlap (Batch 10 ran November 2003 to 2005 alongside Batch 9), so a per-batch count is not a 12-month participation rate, and the peak-year total across overlapping batches was higher than the single batch quoted. The programme teaches basic literacy, which is one narrow slice of the adult learning the indicator asks about, and even the peak batch was a few percent of Ghana's adults. The 2003-2005 peak was financed mostly by an IDA credit: US$33.86 million of US$44.94 million in project costs (World Bank ICR535, IDA-3246, P000974), so the erosion partly measures a donor exit rather than a domestic choice. The 2018 report also shows a separate Basic English Literacy track (17,647 learners in 2016/18) that partly offsets the fall. The record carries no figure after the 2014-2016 batch.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
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
- 12per million people
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 858per million people
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 924per million people
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 185253per 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, 1 record- 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.
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.
Bank of Ghana Regulatory Sandbox
The Bank of Ghana, which launched a regulatory and innovation sandbox pilot in 2021, admitted six firms into its Regulatory Sandbox for one year in January 2026 to test the exchange, custody, administration and issuance of virtual assets.
6 firms, entities admitted into the bank of ghana regulatory sandbox (virtual assets cohort), 2026-01. Bank of Ghana, press release 'List of participants - Regulatory Sandbox', 22 January 2026, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Bank of Ghana's FinTech and Innovation Office admits named firms for a fixed one-year test under supervision, using each cohort to validate rules it has not yet issued, here for virtual assets.
Limits: The metric is a count of six firms in one cohort, taken from a press release rather than a statistical series; divided by Ghana's population it is well under one firm per million people. It counts admissions only, not completions or exits. The 2021 launch was a pilot run with EMTECH Service LLC, not a documented admission, so the start year is the first documented admission, 2026. The indicator sums every regulator in the country, and this record covers the Bank of Ghana only. A sandbox at this scale is evidence that the instrument exists and is used, not that it operates at national scale in the sense of a mass programme.
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
- 2.979% 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
- 56.2% of unemployed
- Year
- 2025. 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
- 0.487index 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
- 3.27% 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
60.4 % aged 15+, rank 104 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
0.67 per 100 people, rank 107 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
11.2 % of output, rank 76 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), 2025
90 % of employment, rank 85 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.
Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, December 2022 to February 2023
After losing market access and requesting IMF support in July 2022, Ghana's government launched a domestic debt exchange on 5 December 2022 covering all medium- and long-term local-currency government, Daakye and ESLA bonds, and settled it on 21 February 2023 with 85 percent of the face value of bonds held by investors other than pension funds exchanged, giving almost GHS 50 billion of cash debt relief in 2023.
85 %, share of the face value of eligible bonds held by investors other than pension funds exchanged in the dde, 2023-02-21. 78 days, days from launch of the exchange (5 december 2022) to settlement (21 february 2023), computed, 2023-02-21. International Monetary Fund, Country Report No. 23/168, Ghana: Request for an Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility, staff report, Box 2 (copy hosted by the Ministry of Finance of Ghana), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Ministry of Finance offered domestic bondholders a menu of new longer, lower-coupon bonds at fixed ratios with a deadline, renegotiated the perimeter (exempting pension funds and adjusting terms for individuals) during the offer, and closed within eleven weeks so the IMF programme could be approved.
Limits: The figures are in Box 2 of the staff report (PDF page 22, printed page 18) and the July 2022 request for IMF support is in the debt sustainability annex (PDF page 95); the URL is the Ministry of Finance's copy of the IMF report, because imf.org returned an HTML bot page to a script. The 78 days is computed by us from the two dates in Box 2. The IMF is a party to the programme the exchange was a prior condition for, so this is not an independent evaluation. The speed is of the rule change once decided: the fiscal and debt pressures that forced it built up over years and Ghana lost market access in 2022, so a responsive state would arguably have acted earlier and with less damage. The 85 percent covers only the eligible perimeter: pension funds, about 20 percent of eligible debt, were excluded after bondholder protests, and 85 percent equals only 28 percent of all domestic debt; dollar bonds and Cocobills needed later exchanges. The exchange imposed an average NPV loss of about 30 percent on bondholders, weakened bank balance sheets and was contested in court and on the street; the number shows the operation closed fast, not that its costs were well distributed.
Ghana's 2022 Marburg virus disease response
Ghana's Ministry of Health declared the country's first Marburg virus disease outbreak on 7 July 2022, identified and monitored 198 contacts through 42 days, and declared the outbreak over on 16 September 2022 after three confirmed cases, all from one household, and two deaths.
198 contacts, contacts identified, monitored and completed observation, 2022-09-16. 3 confirmed cases, confirmed marburg cases (two deaths, cfr 67 percent), 2022-09-16. World Health Organization, Disease Outbreak News, Marburg virus disease - Ghana (2022-DON409), 26 September 2022, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Ghana Health Service ran its integrated disease surveillance and response system: a suspected viral haemorrhagic fever was tested at the national reference laboratory, the ministry declared the outbreak, traced and followed every contact for 42 days and isolated the remaining case in a designated centre.
Limits: Three cases in one household is a very small event, and containing it shows that surveillance and contact tracing worked once, not a standing national capacity; a small outbreak can end quickly by luck of the transmission chain. Detection was late for the first case: the index patient was admitted on 26 June and died the next day, and a second household member, a child, was infected and died before isolation, so two of three cases were fatal. The figures are WHO's restatement of Ministry of Health reports, so the government is reporting on its own response, with WHO and partners in support. The national laboratory (Noguchi Memorial Institute) confirmed the virus, but Institut Pasteur Dakar's confirmation was part of the timeline, as the DON describes. The record says nothing about Ghana's response to other shocks such as the 2023 Akosombo dam spillage floods.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
-0.7 over 10 years, from 11.4 in 2016 to 10.7 on 3 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
- 10.107% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.11% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2023. 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
- 83.913score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.065index
- 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
20,068 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 94 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.
Accra bus rapid transit under the Ghana Urban Transport Project, and its cancellation
Ghana's Department of Urban Roads, joined in 2012 by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, set out in 2007 to build Sub-Saharan Africa's first bus rapid transit corridor in Accra for an estimated US$46 million of infrastructure, but after a design review raised that estimate to US$100.7 million and counterpart funds did not arrive, the BRT was dropped in the 2014 restructuring without its 9.1 km of dedicated lanes being built, and the project closed in December 2015, 35.5 months after its original December 2012 closing date.
100.7 million US dollars, revised cost estimate for the brt infrastructure after the 2013 design review, 2013. 46 million US dollars, original cost estimate for the brt infrastructure (component 3), 2007. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Ghana Urban Transport Project (P100619, P092509), January 2017, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: Two government agencies split responsibility for the roads and the buses of a first-of-its-kind BRT, tendered it before the design was complete, and when bids came in at double the estimate and the treasury could not pay its share, cut the corridor and spent the remaining credit on cheaper bus lanes elsewhere.
Limits: The source is the World Bank's own completion report on a project it financed with AFD and GEF money, and it rates the outcome Unsatisfactory, so it judges the Bank's design as well as Ghana's delivery: the report says the BRT design was not fully developed at appraisal and that bid documents were prepared during implementation. The US$100.7 million is a revised estimate, not money spent, because the BRT was cancelled before Lots 2 and 3 were contracted; what was built under Lot 1 (the Odaw Bridge expansion and a railway flyover) cost US$14.7 million against US$9.2 million estimated, a 60 percent overrun. The 35.5 months is computed from the original and actual closing dates in the report's key dates table (31 December 2012 and 15 December 2015); the text gives the extensions as 29.5 months for two of them. The remaining funds went to quality bus services on two other corridors, which were not operating at closure. What happened to bus services in Accra after 2015 is not covered here.