downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 11893.6articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Singapore
Strongest usable evidence: Learning, at 84.2. Shared Purpose needs more evidence: confidence is 0.28.
Raise, lowest first
No low-scoring dimension has usable evidence.
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Purpose | 0.28 | 32.3 |
| Experimentation | 0.36 | 60.5 |
| Coordination | 0.40 | 74.0 |
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: High-capacity, highly coordinated small state.
Anticipation82.2Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Singapore
Read Singapore 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.
| Learning | 0.54 | 3 of 4 | 0.78 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +17.0(2) | 89.0 | +6.8 | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +6.4(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Coordination | 0.40 | 3 of 5 | 0.83 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.49 | 5 of 7 | 0.83 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.36 | 6 of 9 | 0.60 | +3.6(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.28 | 2 of 6 | 0.92 | no trend | 60.0 | +27.7 |
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?
+17.0 over 10 years, from 65.2 in 2016 to 82.2 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
- 88.319index 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, 1 record- 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), 2022
1.8 % of GDP, rank 21 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), 2022
8,782 per million people, rank 4 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
209,665 per million people, rank 3 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.
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.
Centre for Strategic Futures, foresight inside government
Singapore established the Centre for Strategic Futures in 2009 inside the Prime Minister's Office strategy system to study blind spots, run long-term futures research and develop foresight methods.
2009 year, year the centre for strategic futures was established, 2009. Centre for Strategic Futures, Who we are, retrieved 2026-08-30.
How it worked: A central strategy unit gives government a standing place to examine emerging risks and challenge assumptions before those risks become immediate policy demands.
Limits: Creating a foresight unit shows a formal capability for examining uncertainty, not whether its work changes budgets, policies or decisions. The centre describes its own mandate and does not publish a counterfactual for decisions made without it.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 90.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.60
The Centre for Strategic Futures, scenario planning across ministries and long-horizon land, water and reserves planning are organisational routines that have survived several leadership transitions, which is the strongest form this capability takes. Panelist B's point about concentration at the top is fair, so I come down two points, but the system is the frame's leader.
- 89.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.60
Hold, nudged up slightly: panelist A's point that the foresight bodies have outlasted their founders answers my worry that anticipation is concentrated at the top, since it is institutionalised rather than personal. I keep below 92 because distributed sensing outside government is thinner than the state apparatus.
- 86.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Article counts are partly bought, but an institutionalised foresight centre, long-horizon land and water planning and top statistical capacity are conversion of resources into planning. I hold near 85 because the centralisation point is fair but does not cut the capability.
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
- 11.593per 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
- 1.5days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 2count
- 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
- 6.8mean 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
94.4 % of population, rank 17 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
98 % aged 15+, rank 21 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), 2020
128 % of GDP, rank 10 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.
Singapore's national ICT-skills measurement and baseline
Singapore's Department of Statistics ICT-skills table reports 99.0% in the total row for residents aged 16–74 in 2025, while 55.2% could use a basic arithmetic formula in a spreadsheet; the government uses the series to track SDG 4.4.1 and its Digital Skills for Life framework.
99 % of residents aged 16-74, residents with an ict skill in the total row, 2025. 55.2 % of residents aged 16-74, basic spreadsheet arithmetic skill, 2025. Singapore Department of Statistics, annual ICT-skills dataset (IMDA source), retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Singapore pairs a recurring skills measurement with a public baseline framework, Digital Skills for Life, and targeted support such as Seniors Go Digital. The combination makes digital capability a population service obligation rather than a one-off computer course, while the task rows reveal where basic access still masks deeper gaps.
Limits: The table records task-specific self-reported or survey-derived skills for Singapore residents, not independently tested proficiency, workplace transfer or equal access. The age base changed from residents aged 15 and above in 2016–2020 to ages 16–74 from 2021, and a high total can hide weak performance on harder tasks such as spreadsheet work.
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
- 10hours
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 105.367percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
- one year
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
- 0.412index 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
4.126 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.
Tuaspring desalination partnership, and its collapse
PUB contracted Hyflux's Tuaspring Pte Ltd under a water purchase agreement for Singapore's largest desalination plant, opened in 2013, then terminated the agreement on 17 April 2019 after the operator failed to keep the plant reliably operational, took the plant into public ownership in May 2019 and spent around $80 million on repairs due for completion in mid-2021.
80 million SGD, pub repair cost after taking over the failed partnership plant, 2021-02. Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, Singapore, written reply to Parliamentary Question on Tuas South Desalination Plant, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: PUB bought desalinated water from a private developer under a long-term purchase agreement and, when the developer's finances failed, used the contract's default and termination remedies to take the plant into public ownership and repair it itself.
Limits: This is one contract failing, not the end of Singapore's public-private water model: PUB's own page lists Keppel Marina East (2020) and Jurong Island (2022) desalination plants built and run by private firms after the collapse, so the partnership approach survived and the record documents the loss of one delivery inside it. The $80 million is a ministerial answer to a parliamentary question, not an audited figure, and it covers repairs only, not PUB's operating costs since takeover or what the private partner's investors lost. The original 25-year term and contracted capacity of the agreement are reported only by press and secondary sources found today, so the record does not carry them. A hostile reviewer can also read the episode as the state's contractual safeguards working, which is how the minister presented it: the water supply was not interrupted.
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
- 164days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.575% of firms
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.543scale 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
- 34.4% 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
- 18% 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, 1 record- 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
21.8 % 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.
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.
Singapore Courts' case-clearance discipline
Singapore's State Courts disposed of 21,816 civil cases against 20,358 filings in 2023, a 107% civil clearance rate; its Community Justice and Tribunals courts recorded a 99% clearance rate in the same year.
107 % of incoming civil cases, state courts civil-case clearance rate, 2023. 99 % of incoming cases, community justice and tribunals clearance rate, 2023. Singapore Judiciary, Caseload statistics 2023, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Singapore Courts publish workload by court and case type, set clearance as a management measure and combine procedural reform with specialised tribunals and dispute-resolution pathways. The public series makes backlogs visible while the court system can shift suitable disputes into faster channels without pretending that every case is the same.
Limits: Clearance is disposals divided by filings in the same year, so it can exceed 100% when courts work through earlier stock; it does not show timeliness, fairness, legal-aid access, enforcement or the quality of decisions. The Singapore figures cover court workloads and are not a comparable cross-country civil-justice index without harmonised case definitions.
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
- 0.879index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 42.943% of firms
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
- one year
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
- 2.033ratio 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), 2023
97.3 % gross, rank 9 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2024
2.2 % of GDP, rank 111 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
11.6 % of secondary, rank 61 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.
Singapore gave every citizen aged 25 and over an individual training account in 2016 and keeps topping it up, and in 2024 260,000 Singaporeans spent credit on courses, up 35 percent on the year before.
260,000 people, singaporeans who used skillsfuture credit in the year, 2024. Skills and Workforce Development Agency, formerly SkillsFuture Singapore, year-in-review 2024, retrieved 2026-08-27.
How it worked: The state deposits money in a named account each citizen owns, publishes a course registry with subsidies, and lets individual demand rather than employers decide what gets learned, with top-ups aimed at mid-career workers.
Limits: Usage is the programme reporting on itself, and a usage count says nothing about whether the training raised skills or wages. About 260,000 users in a year is under a tenth of the adult citizen population, and separate reporting notes most citizens had not touched their top-up. The record evidences a durable mechanism for adult learning, not a transformation of participation.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
+3.6 over 10 years, from 59.5 in 2016 to 63.1 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
+13.9 over 20 years, from 60.6 in 2006 to 74.5 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
- 2024per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 15088per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 683per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1592972per 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
- 11% aged 18-64
- Year
- 2014. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- one year
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 60.6% not deterred
- Year
- 2014. 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, 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.
MAS FinTech Regulatory Sandbox variants
Singapore's Monetary Authority operates three FinTech Regulatory Sandbox variants—Sandbox, Sandbox Express and Sandbox Plus—giving firms distinct routes to test regulated products with real customers under defined safeguards.
3 sandbox variants, mas fintech regulatory sandbox variants, 2022. Singapore Economic Development Board, overview of the MAS FinTech Regulatory Sandbox, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: MAS made experimentation a staged regulatory service: firms needing tailored controls use the original sandbox, lower-risk activities can use Sandbox Express, and promising proposals can receive a streamlined route with support. Each variant keeps a live test bounded while giving the regulator evidence before a full licence.
Limits: Counting three sandbox routes shows regulatory design and breadth, not applications received, firms graduating to full licences, customer protection, failure rates or the cost of supervision. The EDB account is an official ecosystem description and includes illustrative company cases rather than an independent evaluation of all experiments.
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
- 2.818% 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
- 10.5% of unemployed
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- one year
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.271index 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
- 2.82% 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
77 % aged 15+, rank 33 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
27.8 per 100 people, rank 45 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2023
0.23 % of output, rank 1 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)
No value for this country. 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.
Jobs Support Scheme and the four 2020 Budgets
Singapore's Ministry of Finance introduced the Jobs Support Scheme in the Unity Budget of 18 February 2020, raised and extended it through the Resilience, Solidarity and Fortitude Budgets, the fourth of them presented on 26 May 2020, and disbursed $22.6 billion of wage support from April to December 2020.
22.6 billion SGD, jobs support scheme wage support disbursed, 2020-04 to 2020-12. 4 budgets, budgets presented to parliament in 2020 by 26 may, 2020-05-26. Ministry of Finance, Singapore, press release on the interim assessment of 2020 COVID-19 Budget measures, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Finance Ministry built one wage-subsidy scheme on the existing payroll and pension contribution records, paid it automatically without applications, and then changed its rate and duration in each supplementary budget as the lockdown was imposed and extended.
Limits: Every figure is the Ministry of Finance assessing its own measures. Disbursement measures how fast money moved, not whether the rules changed for the right reasons or whether the jobs would have been lost without it; the ministry's own job-saving figure on the same page is a modelled estimate, and the record does not carry it. The speed rested on accumulated reserves that most of the benchmarked countries do not have, so the case shows what a cash-rich centre of government can do, not responsiveness under fiscal constraint. Four budgets in about 14 weeks counts revisions; it does not show that each revision was well targeted, and wage subsidies paid on every local employee reached firms that would have kept their workers anyway. The scheme was temporary by design and wound down after the crisis, so the record is a concluded delivery and not evidence of standing institutional agility.
PUB drainage programme and the shrinking of flood-prone land
Singapore's drainage authorities, the Drainage Department and later PUB, expanded the national drainage system under a drainage master plan, with a development drainage code from 1976, and reduced flood-prone areas from about 3,200 hectares in the 1970s to less than 25 hectares by 2025, with about $2.5 billion spent on drainage upgrades since 2011.
25 hectares (upper bound, 'less than'), flood-prone area remaining, 2025-02. 3,200 hectares, flood-prone area in the 1970s, 1970s. Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, Singapore, oral reply to Parliamentary Question on drainage improvement, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: A single drainage authority drew a national master plan, built and widened canals and drains against it, and wrote flood protection into the development code so that every new building carried its own platform level and runoff controls.
Limits: Flood-prone area is PUB's own definition, counted by the agency that is responsible for reducing it, and the method behind the count is not published with it. The 1970s baseline is a rounded single figure with no year. An intermediate official figure, 40 hectares in 2013 in the PUB annual report, is consistent with a falling series, but the curve cannot be rebuilt from one dataset. The drop combines drainage works with land reclamation, raised platform levels and redevelopment, so it does not isolate the drainage programme. Flash floods still occur at listed hotspots, and the number says nothing about recovery from a major shock, because Singapore has not had a catastrophic flood in the period to test it. Most of the reduction predates the climate projections the ministry now plans against, so it shows capacity built against past rainfall, not readiness for sea-level rise. The started year is when the drainage code began, not the first drainage works.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+6.4 over 10 years, from 61.4 in 2016 to 67.8 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
- 17.43% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 59.43% 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
- 96.522score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.041index
- 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
233,454 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 2 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.
Housing and Development Board, public housing at scale
Singapore set up the Housing and Development Board in 1960 to address a severe housing shortage, and it built more than 21,000 flats within its first three years.
21,000 flats, flats built in the first three years, 1963. Housing and Development Board, Our history, retrieved 2026-08-30.
How it worked: A public housing authority combined land, planning, finance and construction into one delivery system, allowing a severe national shortage to be treated as a programme rather than as separate private projects.
Limits: The early construction count shows delivery at scale, not housing quality, affordability or equal access over the full history of the programme. The account is published by the agency responsible for the programme.