downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2078.83articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Kenya
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 58.7. Raise Building first, at 22.7. Experimentation needs more evidence: confidence is 0.33.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Building | 0.57 | 22.7 |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 31.9 |
| Trust | 0.50 | 42.6 |
| Learning | 0.55 | 45.5 |
| Agency | 0.56 | 47.9 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 6.6 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.40 | 65.6 |
| Coordination | 0.41 | 78.7 |
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: East African digital finance leader, where a private rail reached population scale.
Anticipation31.9Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Kenya
Read Kenya 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 | 0.41 | 3 of 5 | 0.86 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.40 | 3 of 6 | 0.86 | +2.0(2) | 50.0 | -15.6 | |
| Adaptability | 0.58 | 4 of 6 | 0.94 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.50 | 5 of 7 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +16.0(2) | 33.0 | +1.1 | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | -4.8(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.79 | +0.1(2) | 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?
+16.0 over 10 years, from 15.9 in 2016 to 31.9 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
- 73.355index 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), 2024
0.81 % of GDP, rank 43 of 118. 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), 2024
384 per million people, rank 74 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
400 per million people, rank 82 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
- 33.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Hold near round 1: KNBS and the National Drought Management Authority are standing institutions whose early warning triggers funded responses, which is anticipation through organisations. Research output is very low and fiscal planning missed a foreseeable debt squeeze.
- 35.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Decent statistics and the NDMA drought early-warning system that triggers community and cash responses show practical anticipation; panelist C's point that drought responses still arrive late and A's on missed debt stress are fair, so I lower somewhat.
- 33.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
The drought early-warning system that triggers cash responses is practical conversion of modest resources; A's note on missed debt stress and thin research keep me from B's 38. I move up three.
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
- 1.734per 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
- 23days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 7count
- 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
- 7mean 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
35 % of population, rank 110 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
90.1 % aged 15+, rank 33 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), 2023
31.8 % of GDP, rank 81 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
- 15.5hours
- 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
- 86.237percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2024. 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
- 0.718index 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), 2025
5.757 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.
M-Pesa, and the regulator that let it run
Kenya's central bank let a phone company build a national payments system in 2007 and supervised it into ubiquity, and by June 2026 Kenya had 94.2 million registered mobile money accounts and 572,104 agents, in a population of about 55 million.
94,200,000 accounts, registered mobile money accounts, 2026-06. Central Bank of Kenya, mobile payments statistics, retrieved 2026-08-27.
How it worked: The central bank issued a letter of no objection instead of demanding a banking licence, set conditions on trust accounts holding customer float, and wrote the e-money regulations after the system worked, legalising what it had learned rather than licensing what it could imagine.
Limits: The delivery was Safaricom's, a majority-private company, so the record bears on public-private collaboration only through what the state did: permit, then supervise, then regulate interoperability. Registered accounts overstate people, since many Kenyans hold several, and account counts say nothing about fees, which are materially higher than card rails elsewhere. A single dominant operator is also a concentration the indicator's construct does not reward.
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
- 465days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 33.194% of firms
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.403scale 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
- 9.5% 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
- 25% 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
18.4 % 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
- 0.547index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 36.013% of firms
- Year
- 2025. 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
- 1.157ratio 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
10.4 % gross, rank 104 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
4 % of GDP, rank 67 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), 2009
0.49 % of secondary, rank 119 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
The value is from 2009, more than 15 years old.
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.
Kenya's adult education centres, and their halving
Kenya's state adult education programme, run since the 1978 presidential literacy decree through adult education centres in every county, enrolled 330,340 learners in 2014 and 165,552 in 2025, after a low of 125,402 in 2023, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
165,552 learners, learners enrolled in adult education centres, 2025. 330,340 learners, learners enrolled in adult education centres at the 2014 peak of the published series, 2014. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Economic Survey 2026, Table 15.27 (source: State Department for Social Protection and Senior Citizens Affairs, Directorate of Adult Learning and Education), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The presidency decreed a national literacy programme, and the education ministry, and later a social protection directorate, ran it through state-paid instructors in community adult education centres in every district. Enrolment fell by half over a decade as the function moved between ministries and county returns degraded.
Limits: The metric is a head count of learners in adult education centres, mostly basic literacy, not the share of adults in formal or non-formal education and training that the indicator defines: 165,552 is well under one percent of Kenya's adult population, and the count leaves out TVET, university, employer training and private courses entirely. The peak is only the highest year in the series KNBS publishes from 2010 onwards (252,553 in 2010, 330,340 in 2014). The 1980s literacy campaign almost certainly enrolled more, so the true loss from the programme's peak is understated, not overstated. The series is administrative and badly maintained. KNBS revised 2015 from 246,215 (Economic Survey 2016) to 306,228 (Economic Survey 2018). The 2025 figure is provisional. Several counties report identical numbers in consecutive years (Garissa 3,256 in all four years 2022 to 2025, and Samburu and Laikipia repeated), which points to carried-forward returns. One county, Nairobi, accounts for most of the 2025 rebound, rising from 13,194 to 34,506 in one year. Falling enrolment can partly reflect success, since younger cohorts went through universal primary schooling and need less remedial literacy, so the decline is evidence of lost provision only alongside the fact that the programme was reorganised across ministries and is now run by a social protection directorate. The 1978 start year is the presidential decree reported by the state news agency, not a documented first enrolment. The 2014 peak was itself revised: Economic Survey 2015 published 300,462 (provisional) and Economic Survey 2017 restated it as 330,340; against the earlier figure the fall to 2025 is about 45 percent rather than half.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
+0.1 over 10 years, from 1.2 in 2016 to 1.3 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
+0.7 over 20 years, from 0.6 in 2006 to 1.3 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
- 160per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 5254per million people
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 126per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 745487per 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.
Capital Markets Authority regulatory sandbox
Kenya's Capital Markets Authority opened a regulatory sandbox under a 2019 policy guidance note and by January 2024 had let 11 firms exit it after live testing, with new admissions continuing into January 2025.
11 firms, firms that successfully exited the cma regulatory sandbox, 2024-01. Capital Markets Authority of Kenya, press release 'CMA graduates Sycamore Capital Limited from the Regulatory Sandbox', retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Capital Markets Authority issued a policy guidance note that let fintech firms and incumbents test capital markets products with real customers under relaxed rules, then used each exit as the moment to grant a licence or approval under the Capital Markets Act.
Limits: This is one regulator's sandbox for capital markets products only. It says nothing about the Central Bank of Kenya, the Communications Authority or any other regulator, so it covers little of the breadth the indicator asks for. The count is the regulator's own, taken from a press release, and the CMA publishes no running register. The 11 exits are cumulative over almost five years, a small number that says nothing about what the exiting products did in the market. 'Successful exit' is the CMA's own description. The figure is from January 2024, and no later official total was found.
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
- 5.449% 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
- 59% of unemployed
- Year
- 2021. 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
- 0.186index 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
- 2.91% 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
68 % aged 15+, rank 79 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
3 per 100 people, rank 95 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), 2024
25.8 % of output, rank 111 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), 2019
86.5 % of employment, rank 81 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.
Hunger Safety Net Programme, a shock-responsive cash transfer for drought
Kenya's National Drought Management Authority expanded the shock-responsive Hunger Safety Net Programme from four to eight arid counties, enrolling 32,000 new households paid from the government's own budget by December 2024, while 100 percent of regular transfers in the original four counties were financed by the government.
32,000 households, new regular hsnp households enrolled and paid through the government budget in expansion counties, 2024-12. 8 counties, counties covered by the shock-responsive hsnp, 2025. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR00527, Kenya Social and Economic Inclusion Project (P164654), 6 August 2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The drought authority pre-registers and banks almost every household in the arid north, pays the poorest a regular transfer, and uses satellite vegetation triggers to extend payments to more registered households when drought hits, so money can move without a new targeting exercise.
Limits: The source is the lender's completion report on a project it financed, and the numbers are in the PDF (32,000 households on printed pages 22 and 35; four to eight counties on printed page 17; drought arrears on printed page 16). The headline number is regular coverage, not drought response: the report says that during the 2021 to 2023 drought the scalable emergency component ran a deficit, emergency transfers were underfinanced and delayed, and arrears were paid only later, and that planned scale-up payments in 2024/25 were not triggered. So the record shows the standing system, not a fast drought payout. HSNP covers arid and semi-arid counties, not the whole country, by design. The 2009 start year is the first HSNP phase, which ran as a donor-funded pilot before the government took it over, and is not stated in this report.
Central Bank of Kenya emergency loan restructuring measures
The Central Bank of Kenya announced emergency measures on 18 and 24 March 2020 that let banks restructure loans performing on 2 March 2020, and by the end of February 2021, days before the measures expired on 2 March 2021, loans of Ksh 1.7 trillion, 57 percent of the banking sector's gross loans, had been restructured.
57 % of banking sector gross loans, loans restructured under the emergency measures, cumulative, 2021-02. 19 % of banking sector gross loans, restructured loans still outstanding when the measures expired, 2021-02. Central Bank of Kenya, press release: Expiry of Emergency Measures on Restructuring of Loans for Bank Borrowers (23 March 2021), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The central bank changed loan classification and provisioning rules by circular within a week of the first case, letting banks extend repayment, grant moratoria and waive fees on loans performing before the shock, and set a fixed expiry date after which standard classification resumed.
Limits: The regulator is grading its own measure: the release calls it highly effective and gives no independent evaluation, and the figures are a one-page press release PDF, not a supervisory dataset. Restructuring is a forbearance rule, not new money, and restructured loans can hide losses: the share says nothing about how many restructured loans later defaulted, beyond the release's own statement that over 95 percent of the Ksh 569.3 billion still outstanding was being repaid on restructured terms. The cumulative 57 percent counts amounts, not borrowers, and includes loans restructured more than once if banks reported them so. The speed evidence is a separate CBK release: the Monetary Policy Committee statement of 29 July 2020 (https://www.centralbank.go.ke/uploads/mpc_press_release/603807985_MPC%20Press%20Release%20-%20Meeting%20of%20July%2029%202020.pdf) reports KES 844.4 billion, 29 percent of the loan book, restructured by the end of June 2020, the same release that reports the gross NPL ratio at 13.1 percent. One temporary financial-sector rule does not show how fast Kenyan public programmes change in general.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
-4.8 over 10 years, from 13.2 in 2016 to 8.4 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
- 7.123% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.15% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2024. 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
- 65.652score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.094index
- 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
14,763 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 104 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.
Standard Gauge Railway, Mombasa to Naivasha
Kenya Railways began building the Standard Gauge Railway in financial year 2014/15, completed the 472 km Mombasa to Nairobi Phase I in 2017, and opened the 120 km Phase 2A to Naivasha in September 2019 against a September 2017 start and an 18-month plan, about six months late; the line hauled 7.33 million tonnes of freight in 2025.
18 months, planned construction period of sgr phase 2a (sept 2017 start, ksh 155.5 billion), against which the line opened in september 2019, about six months (a third) late, 2017. 7,332 thousand tonnes, freight hauled on the sgr, 2025. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Economic Survey 2018, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Treasury and Kenya Railways contracted a Chinese state contractor on a design-build-supply basis with Exim Bank finance, which put construction risk and speed on the contractor and left financing, land acquisition and traffic risk with the state.
Limits: No official source found publishes the outturn cost of either phase against its budget, so the record carries a cost plan (KSh 155.5 billion for Phase 2A) and no cost performance. That is the half of the construct that matters most for a Chinese-financed turnkey contract. The schedule overrun of about six months on Phase 2A, or a third of the 18-month plan, is computed: the plan is from KNBS, and the opening is from the Ministry of Roads and Transport Strategic Plan 2023-2027 draft ('completed Phase 2A ... and was launched for operation in September 2019', https://www.transport.go.ke/sites/default/files/DRAFT%20FINAL%20MINISTERIAL%20STRATEGIC%20PLAN%202023-27%20FEB%202024%20.pdf). Phase I's schedule against its plan cannot be checked from an official copy. The National Assembly's 2014 Public Investments Committee report giving a December 2016 completion date and a USD 3.804 billion contract price was found only on an NGO mirror. The parliamentary repository timed out, so neither figure is used. The railway was meant to run to Malaba and into Uganda, and the Naivasha to Malaba section remained unbuilt for years. The same ministry plan reports rail carrying 19 percent of port throughput in 2021 against a 50 percent target for 2030. Freight tonnage is published by KNBS from Kenya Railways returns. Debt service and fiscal cost are not shown at all.