downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 18981.87articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Mexico
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 65.4. Raise Experimentation first, at 25.2. Coordination needs more evidence: confidence is 0.37.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Experimentation | 0.53 | 25.2 |
| Trust | 0.49 | 41.2 |
| Learning | 0.54 | 42.5 |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 49.9 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Coordination | 0.37 | 74.3 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.43 | 45.2 |
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: Second largest Latin American economy; deep manufacturing base tied to North America.
Anticipation49.9Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Mexico
Read Mexico 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 | 0.37 | 3 of 5 | 0.78 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Adaptability | 0.46 | 3 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | 55.0 | -10.4 | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +2.5(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +10.7(2) | 45.0 | -4.9 | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.43 | 3 of 6 | 0.94 | +8.6(2) | 42.0 | -3.2 | |
| Learning | 0.54 | 3 of 4 | 0.78 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.49 | 5 of 7 | 0.83 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.53 | 6 of 9 | 0.88 | +0.4(3) | no data | no estimate |
How to read this page
Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.
A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.
- direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
- capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
- downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
- perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.
Confidence
- very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
- thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
- usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
- good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.
Anticipation
How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
+10.7 over 10 years, from 39.2 in 2016 to 49.9 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
- 90.95index 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
0.25 % of GDP, rank 83 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
438 per million people, rank 70 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
532 per million people, rank 75 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
- 45.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold 45. SASMEX and CENAPRED are real institutional anticipation, as the others note, but they predate 2019 and sit beside a thinned science funding base and the loss of autonomous bodies, so they do not lift me above the indicator score.
- 45.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I accept panelist A's point that foresight capacity has eroded with the loss of trust funds and autonomous bodies since 2019, and trim one point; I still sit above C because INEGI and the SASMEX seismic alert network are real, distributed anticipation the research count misses.
- 43.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
The SPI is a real capability signal, but article output is thin and the erosion of autonomous bodies and long-horizon funding is a fair point from panelist A, so I move up one point only. Civil protection strengths are unmeasured here.
Agency
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.954per 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
- 8.415days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 7.83count
- 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, 1 record- 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
- 8.2mean 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
83.1 % of population, rank 64 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
53 % aged 15+, rank 93 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2025
35.5 % of GDP, rank 71 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.
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.
Puntos México Conectado, national digital learning centres
Mexico's communications ministry operated Puntos México Conectado centres in all 32 states, reporting more than 410,000 enrolled members and over 260,000 course enrolments by June 2017.
410,000 members, punto méxico conectado enrolled members, 2017-06. 260,000 enrolments, course enrolments reported by the network, 2017-06. Secretaría de Infraestructura, Comunicaciones y Transportes, Government of Mexico, retrieved 2026-09-02.
How it worked: The communications ministry put free digital classrooms in every state, then used equipment and curriculum partnerships with firms such as Samsung to turn connectivity points into places where people could practise new tools.
Limits: The ministry reports registrations and course enrolments, not a comparable adult-skills test, completion rate or retained ability. The article is a programme announcement about a partnership and does not establish how many of the 410,000 members completed training or whether the network continued at that scale after 2017.
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
- 20.389hours
- 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
- 107.199percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2021. 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
- 0.49index 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
20.549 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.
Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro, government-workplace training
Mexico's labour ministry linked young people to more than half a million registered workplaces for on-the-job training, reporting 2.95 million beneficiaries nationwide after five years of Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro in February 2024.
2,950,000 people, young people benefited, 2024-02. 500,000 workplaces, workplaces registered to host training, 2024-02. Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, Government of Mexico, retrieved 2026-09-02.
How it worked: The labour ministry paid a stipend and social insurance while firms, shops and civil-society organisations supplied real work placements, with a shared digital platform matching young people to host workplaces.
Limits: The ministry's total is a cumulative programme count and the workplace figure is rounded; neither shows unique completions, the quality of mentoring or whether trainees stayed employed. The government funds the stipend and insurance, so the record demonstrates a large public-private delivery interface rather than private financing of the programme.
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
- 340.65days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 15.817% of firms
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.162scale 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
- 10.5% 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
- 13.1% 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
6.1 % 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
- 0.613index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 37.835% 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
- 0.734ratio 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
48.2 % gross, rank 67 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
4.1 % of GDP, rank 66 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), 2018
27.7 % of secondary, rank 23 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.
Mexico's Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos certified 651,473 young people and adults as having completed a level of literacy, primary or secondary education in 2024, with 352,600 learners in its services at the close of the year.
651,473 people, people who completed a level (literacy, primary or secondary) with inea, 2024. 352,600 learners ('352.6 mil'), learners in inea services at the close of the year, 2024-12. Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos, Programa Institucional 2025-2030, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: A federal institute and state adult education institutes run a semi-open model in which volunteers with a small stipend tutor adults in community spaces, and learners sit module examinations when ready, so a credential can be earned without a classroom timetable.
Limits: The figures are INEA reporting on itself from its own tracking system (SASA). A completed level is a credential, often obtained by examination after self-study, and says nothing about how much was learned; one person can complete more than one level in a year. Against 27.5 million people aged 15 and over who, by the same document, have not finished basic education, a year's completions are about two percent of the backlog. The same document's indicator series shows completions fell sharply in 2019 and 2020 and rebounded from 2021, and it notes a fall in people served in 2024; chaining those published rates back from the 538,741 completions the document gives for 2023 puts 2019 at about 680,000 and 2018 at about 853,000, so 2024 is below both, by about 4 and 24 percent (our computation, from rounded rates).
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
+0.4 over 10 years, from 8.4 in 2016 to 8.8 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
+4.1 over 20 years, from 4.7 in 2006 to 8.8 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
- 1117per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 142012per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1225per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 944479per 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.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 19.4% aged 18-64
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- one year
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 59.6% not deterred
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
- History
- one year
Firms through regulatory sandboxes
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no datafirms per million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national regulators
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.
University spinouts
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national TTO associations
- History
- no data
Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.
Business share of R&D
capability inputretired, see notes- Raw value
- no data% of R&D
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD MSTI / RICYT
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.673% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
Long-term unemployment share
downstream outcomemissing- Raw value
- no data% of unemployed
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- no data
Note: Derived from ILOSTAT unemployment by duration: 12 months or more over the unemployed whose duration is stated, both sexes, age 15 and over, a labour force survey preferred where ILOSTAT holds more than one. Read it beside the unemployment rate, because a high share means two different things: slow reallocation, where people who lose work stay out of it (South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria), or a small residual pool in a tight market, where the few left unemployed are the hardest to place (Switzerland, Japan). Some national questionnaires cannot record a long search, so the adapter runs a plausibility gate on every country: it drops a year under 3%, every year of a survey whose median is under 3%, a one- or two-year spike of more than 15 points that the series returns from, and a latest year that jumps more than 15 points with no later year to confirm it, then emits the latest year that survives. Every dropped value is logged in the source memo. See D120.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.154index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.69% 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, 2 records- 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, 2 records- 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
66.3 % aged 15+, rank 84 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
21.7 per 100 people, rank 58 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
11.1 % of output, rank 75 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
56.9 % of employment, rank 53 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.
COFEPRIS digital regulatory procedures
Mexico's medicines and health-products regulator COFEPRIS completed 509,921 procedures entirely online with traceability by 5 September 2024, replacing paper hand-offs for a large share of its regulated users.
509,921 procedures, procedures completed fully digitally, 2024-09-05. Comisión Federal para la Protección contra Riesgos Sanitarios, Government of Mexico, retrieved 2026-09-02.
How it worked: The regulator converted submission, tracking and completion into one traceable digital workflow, so applicants could see a case move without physically carrying documents between offices.
Limits: COFEPRIS publishes the number of completed digital procedures but not a before-and-after median processing time, rejection rate or compliance outcome. It is a regulator's own operational tally, and the article does not establish that every procedure type or every applicant could use the digital path.
Simulacro Nacional 2024, a nationwide emergency exercise
Mexico's national civil-protection system coordinated a countrywide earthquake exercise in September 2024 in which 9,727,000 people participated, with alerts carried over 14,490 public loudspeakers and a multi-agency task force of 1.9 million personnel.
9,727,000 people, participants in the national drill, 2024-09-19. 14,490 loudspeakers, public loudspeakers activated, 2024-09-19. Secretaría de Seguridad y Protección Ciudadana, Government of Mexico, retrieved 2026-09-02.
How it worked: The national protection agency set one scenario, aligned federal, state and municipal responders, pushed the same alert through public infrastructure and used the exercise to expose protocol gaps before a real shock.
Limits: A drill records mobilisation and protocol testing, not performance in a real disaster. Participation is self-reported by agencies and organisations, and the loudspeaker count covers only listed jurisdictions; the exercise used a hypothetical earthquake and cannot establish casualty reduction or recovery speed.
PROSPERA, and its replacement by a new scholarship authority
Mexico abolished the 2014 decree creating PROSPERA on 31 May 2019 and ordered its people, assets and budget to transfer to the new Benito Juárez scholarship coordination within 90 days.
90 days, legal transition window for prospera assets and staff, 2019-05-31. 1 decree, prospera founding decree abrogated, 2019-05-31. Diario Oficial de la Federación, Government of Mexico, retrieved 2026-09-02.
How it worked: The executive used a new coordinating body and a single transition clause to move PROSPERA's staff, resources and education components into a different delivery model rather than preserve the old agency by inertia.
Limits: The decree proves a formal policy and organisational change, not that the 90-day transfer happened on time or that beneficiaries experienced a seamless handover. It also does not compare PROSPERA's outcomes with the replacement scholarships, and the transition combined a programme redesign with a change in political administration.
FONDEN, the natural disaster fund, and its abolition
Mexico's federal government ran FONDEN from 1999 as a pre-arranged national fund for post-disaster reconstruction, allocating a record US$833 million to it in 2011 and insuring it with catastrophe bonds, and abrogated the FONDEN trust by the decree of 6 November 2020, moving disaster spending onto ordinary budget lines.
833 US$ million, fonden annual federal budget allocation, the highest to that date, 2011. World Bank, GFDRR and Government of Mexico, FONDEN: Mexico's Natural Disaster Fund, A Review (2012), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Finance Ministry and the Interior Ministry built a rules-based trust that set aside budget for reconstruction before disasters and reinsured it through catastrophe bonds. A new administration and Congress then folded the trust into ordinary budget lines through a decree converting it into a budgetary scheme, justified by transparency.
Limits: The metric shows the fund at its peak, not its dismantling. The abolition rests on a second World Bank document with no number in it: the Mexico Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth DPL (P178224, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/556411654274244589/pdf/Mexico-Inclusive-and-Sustainable-Economic-Growth-Development-Policy-Loan.pdf) refers to "the abrogation of the Mexico's National Disaster Fund (FONDEN)" (page 31), and the government's own letter in its annex says that after "the Decree published on 6 November 2020, the financial instrument FONDEN is changing from a trust to a budgetary scheme". So disaster spending did not stop. What ended was the trust, its reserve-building and its inter-institutional rules, and the same DPL says the 2022 emergency budget covered only an average year's losses. The record has no post-abolition figure for reconstruction spending or speed, so the claim that capacity fell is the World Bank's reading, not a measurement. The 2011 allocation is one year inside a volatile series. The same review says spending exceeded FONDEN's resources in five of the years from 1999 to 2011 and needed transfers of over US$3.3 billion in 2010, so the fund was never fully self-sufficient. The review was co-authored with the Mexican government it describes.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 55.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold 55. Panelist B's nearshoring point is fair, but the reallocation is driven by firms inside US supply chains rather than by Mexican institutions, and FONDEN's elimination removed the main formal shock-response instrument.
- 57.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Others are right that informality flatters unemployment, which I already priced in; I hold well above C because the nearshoring reallocation and household remittance adjustment are genuine adaptive moves, though FONDEN's elimination costs a point.
- 54.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Low unemployment is largely informal-sector absorption, and export diversification reflects integration into North American chains. Panelist B's nearshoring and remittance adjustment is real but unmeasured, so I move up slightly without accepting the indicator-derived level.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+2.5 over 10 years, from 49.3 in 2016 to 51.8 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
- 19.976% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 19.304% 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
- 64.157score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.4index
- 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, 4 records- 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
48,141 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 61 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.
Seguro Popular, and its abolition
Mexico built public health insurance for people outside social security from 2003 and abolished it in 2020, and CONEVAL measured the share of the population without access to health services rising from 16.2 percent in 2018 to 39.1 percent in 2022.
39.1 % of population, population lacking access to health services after abolition, 2022. 16.2 % of population, population lacking access to health services before abolition, 2018. CONEVAL, comunicado no. 7, medicion multidimensional de la pobreza 2022, retrieved 2026-08-27.
How it worked: The abolition is the mechanism recorded here: a new government replaced a funded, enrolment-based entitlement with a budget-line service that required no affiliation, and affiliation-based coverage disappeared faster than the replacement could deliver care.
Limits: The metric measures the dismantling, not the programme: CONEVAL's deprivation number is self-reported affiliation, not care received, and Seguro Popular at its peak was itself criticised for shallow coverage and uneven state-level spending. The 2018-2022 change spans the pandemic, which stressed every health system, so not all of the 23-point rise is the reform. CONEVAL itself lost autonomy in a later reorganisation, so the continuity of this series is not assured.
CFE Telecomunicaciones e Internet para Todos
Mexico's state telecom operator CFE Telecomunicaciones e Internet para Todos installed 113,683 free public internet sites by September 2024, reaching 81.2 percent of its stated 140,000-site 2025 goal.
113,683 sites, free public internet sites installed, 2024-09. 81.2 % of goal, share of the 2025 site goal reached, 2024-09. CFE Telecomunicaciones e Internet para Todos, Government of Mexico, retrieved 2026-09-02.
How it worked: A state-owned carrier combined satellite, fibre, copper and mobile contracts with public access points, using a federal operator to reach places commercial networks had not served.
Limits: The management report is self-reported and counts installed sites, not uptime, geographic service quality, affordability after the free offer or actual use. The 81.2 percent figure is calculated from the report's installed count and stated goal, and the programme was still short of that goal at the reference date.
New International Airport of Mexico, and its cancellation
Mexico cancelled the partially built Texcoco airport after construction and contracts had begun; the government's 2019 cancellation paper estimated a 100 billion peso cancellation cost, including 60 billion pesos already spent and 40 billion in non-recoverable commitments.
100,000,000,000 Mexican pesos, government estimate of cancellation cost, 2019-04-26. 60,000,000,000 Mexican pesos, construction expenditure already incurred at cancellation, 2019-04-26. Grupo Aeroportuario de la Ciudad de México, Government of Mexico, retrieved 2026-09-02.
How it worked: A new administration stopped a politically contested megaproject, terminated contracts and redirected the airport strategy to a different site, accepting sunk costs in exchange for a different delivery path.
Limits: The 100 billion peso figure is the government's own estimate and excludes or treats differently the financing and legal costs that later audits and congressional analyses debated. Cancellation is evidence of a project running backwards and of a political decision to change course, not evidence that the replacement airport delivered better value or schedule performance.
Pemex built the Olmeca refinery at Dos Bocas, authorized in December 2018 and fully operational from February 2025, under an authorized budget of US$15,963.0 million, 79 percent above the US$8,918.5 million Class IV estimate stated when its board authorized the FEL II phase in July 2020.
15,963 US$ million including VAT, authorized project budget after the august 2022 rebaseline, excluding us$853.3 million for start-up, 2022. 8,918.5 US$ million, class iv cost estimate approved at fel ii, 2020-07. Petróleos Mexicanos, annual report on Form 20-F for fiscal year 2023, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The federal government chose a greenfield refinery as a political flagship and had Pemex deliver it through a dedicated subsidiary, PTI Infraestructura de Desarrollo, funded through equity contributions from Pemex Industrial Transformation (2020 to 2023). The board re-authorized the scope and budget mid-construction in August 2022.
Limits: Pemex is the state oil company reporting on its own project. The filing is made under US securities law and carries legal liability, but it is not an audit, and Mexico's audit office (ASF) is not reachable from outside Mexico to check against. The publisher is a state enterprise, not a ministry or statistics office, so a strict reading of the publisher rule could exclude it. The 79 percent overrun is our computation from two figures that do not measure the same thing. The Class IV estimate excludes external works, escalation, contingency and administrative costs and carries a stated range of +30 to -25 percent, while the later budget includes VAT. A share of the gap is therefore a change of definition and not an overrun. The government's original public figure, around US$8 billion, appears only in press reports and is not used here. The schedule is shown only by the issuer's own changing expectations. The FY2025 filing (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000932782/000093278226000006/ck0000932782-20251231.htm) says the refinery "has been fully operational since February 2025". No filing states an original completion date to measure the slip against. Full operation is a claim about start-up, not about utilisation or margins, which the FY2025 filing excludes from its refining margin series.