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Documented examples

Each record describes something a country built that the indicators do not capture. The source provides the published number; the mechanism is our interpretation.

Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 742 of 742 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.

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5 of 742 deliveries

Coordination

1 delivery linked to Public-private collaboration.

United Arab Emiratessince 2018still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

UAE Pass, the shared digital identity layer

The UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority reported that UAE Pass had 6.84 million registered users accessing more than 15,000 digital services from government and private-sector providers in 2023.

6,840,000 users, registered uae pass users, 2023. 15,000 services, digital services available through uae pass, 2023. UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, Digital Enablers Report 2023, retrieved 2026-08-31.

The move, and what it needed

TDRA coordinated federal and emirate-level governments around one identity, signature and document layer, then allowed banks, telecoms and other private providers to connect to it. A shared authentication rail lets separate organisations reuse verified identity instead of each rebuilding onboarding.

Preconditions

  • A trusted identity and signature framework with privacy, security and liability rules
  • Technical standards and an integration team able to connect heterogeneous public and private service providers
  • A large enough service portfolio that users and providers have reason to adopt the common identity

Where else it has been used: Digital identity travels as an ecosystem bargain: a single login scales only when public and private providers share standards and users can see a practical service benefit.

Limits: Registered accounts and listed services do not show active use, completion rates, accessibility, privacy experience or whether a transaction became faster for residents. The figures are reported by the authority coordinating the platform, and provider totals combine government, semi-government and private services with different quality and accountability arrangements.

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Firms through regulatory sandboxes.

United Arab Emiratessince 2016still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes

ADGM RegLab, the first fintech sandbox in the region

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market opened its RegLab fintech sandbox to applications on 2 November 2016 and by August 2019 had admitted 32 firms from 83 applications from 20 countries, of which two had graduated to the live market.

32 firms, fintech firms admitted to the adgm reglab since may 2017, 2019-08-25. 2 firms, reglab firms graduated and deployed into the marketplace, 2019-08-25. Abu Dhabi Global Market, Financial Services Regulatory Authority, announcement of the fourth RegLab cohort, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The FSRA wrote a separate, time-limited authorisation category into its rulebook that let fintech firms test with real customers under tailored limits for up to two years, then admitted them in cohorts and moved the successful ones to full licences.

Preconditions

  • A financial free zone with its own common-law regulator able to change rules quickly
  • A federal state that tolerates several competing financial regulators and sandboxes
  • International fintech firms looking for a regional base

Where else it has been used: The design follows the UK FCA sandbox closely. In the UAE it was followed by the DFSA in Dubai and by the federal RegLab launched in January 2019 with the Dubai Future Foundation, so the country now runs several parallel sandboxes instead of one.

Limits: The count is the regulator announcing its own programme in a press release, and it dates from August 2019: no later cumulative total was found at an ADGM URL, so the record says nothing about the sandbox's size today. ADGM is a financial free zone in Abu Dhabi with its own regulator, so this is one jurisdiction's sandbox, not a federal regime. The UAE government portal (https://u.ae/en/about-the-uae/digital-uae/regulatory-framework/regulatory-sandboxes-in-the-uae) lists at least five others, including the federal RegLab launched in January 2019 with the Dubai Future Foundation and the DFSA's Innovation Testing Licence, and no official count of firms across all of them exists. Admissions measure regulatory openness, not whether tested products reached customers safely: two graduates out of 32 admitted by 2019 is a thin outcome, and the release does not say how many firms left without a licence.

Adaptability

2 deliveries linked to Disaster preparedness and recovery, Institutional responsiveness.

United Arab Emiratessince 2020delivered and closedbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

National COVID-19 vaccination campaign

The UAE's health authorities ran a national COVID-19 vaccination campaign from late 2020 that WHO records as having given at least one dose to 9,991,089 people, a first-dose coverage of 100 per 100 people on WHO's capped measure, and 24,922,054 doses in total by 6 July 2022.

9,991,089 people, persons vaccinated with at least one covid-19 vaccine dose, 2022-07-06. 24,922,054 doses, total covid-19 vaccine doses administered, 2022-07-06. World Health Organization, COVID-19 vaccination data (country-reported), retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

Federal and emirate health authorities registered vaccines early, supplied them free to citizens and residents through public and private clinics, drive-throughs and mass centres, and tied access to daily life to vaccination status through the AlHosn app.

Preconditions

  • A small, concentrated population with nearly universal digital identity and smartphone use
  • Fiscal room to buy doses early from several suppliers, including through a clinical-trial partnership
  • Authority to make vaccination status a condition of entry to workplaces and public venues

Where else it has been used: Fast campaigns in small, wealthy states such as Israel and the UAE were widely cited in 2021. The digital-pass part travelled more readily than the procurement part, which depended on early bilateral deals.

Limits: The figures are the UAE's own reports to WHO, not an independent count, and the last update is July 2022. The per-100 share is capped at 100 by WHO and the UAE's population denominator is unusually uncertain because most residents are foreign nationals on visas, so a 100 percent first-dose coverage claim cannot be taken literally; the absolute counts are safer, and they may include doses given to short-stay visitors. The start-date evidence is the Abu Dhabi emirate's media office describing its own emirate, which also says vaccines reached frontline workers from September 2020, so 2020 is the start of use, not of a public national campaign on a fixed date; the federal health ministry's site did not open from here. Coverage is an output of a shock response. It does not show deaths averted, cold-chain performance, equity across nationalities and labour camps, or preparedness for the next shock.

United Arab Emiratessince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

Targeted Economic Support Scheme (TESS)

The Central Bank of the UAE launched the Targeted Economic Support Scheme in March 2020, combining a zero-cost liquidity facility with loan deferrals and capital relief, and by 24 September 2020 more than 300,000 individuals, close to 10,000 SMEs and more than 1,500 private corporates had benefited from the facility.

300,000 individuals (more than), individuals who benefited from the tess zero-cost liquidity facility, 2020-09-24. 10,000 SMEs (close to), smes that benefited from the tess zero-cost liquidity facility, 2020-09-24. Central Bank of the UAE, press release 'CBUAE Governor reviews TESS Program and Systemic Stability with Banks CEO's' (24 September 2020), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The central bank lent to banks at zero cost against collateral and relaxed capital and liquidity buffers on condition that they defer repayments for affected borrowers, so relief reached households and firms through existing bank relationships.

Preconditions

  • A banking sector holding most household and SME credit
  • A central bank with authority to set conditional liquidity and capital relief
  • Fiscal and reserve strength under the currency peg

Where else it has been used: Most central banks ran deferral and liquidity schemes in 2020; the conditional zero-cost facility is the UAE's variant.

Limits: The figures are a central bank press release about its own scheme, rounded ('more than', 'close to'), with no breakdown of amounts or of who would have received relief anyway. The March 2020 start, the extension the following month and the run to 30 June 2022 are stated in the central bank's UAE MSMEs Business Survey Report 2020 (page 10, https://centralbank.ae/media/rtdlng34/cbuae-msme-survey-report-2020-en.pdf), not in this release, and the central bank's web pages sit behind a bot check while its PDFs open. Benefiting from a liquidity facility means a bank passed on a deferral or cheaper credit; it does not show firms or jobs saved. Banks surveyed in that report counted 7,751 MSME customers helped by TESS in 2020, a different measure from this one.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

United Arab Emiratessince 2010still operatingbears on Large project delivery

Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant

The UAE, through the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation and under licences from the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation issued from 2010, built four APR-1400 reactors at Barakah that ENEC reported in September 2024 were all in commercial operation and providing up to 25 percent of the UAE's electricity; Unit 1 entered commercial operation on 6 April 2021, about four years after the 2017 date the regulator recorded in its 2012 construction licence review.

25 % of UAE electricity (up to, as reported), share of uae electricity supplied by barakah, all four units operating, 2024. 4 years (about), unit 1 commercial operation delay against the 2012 licensing plan (computed: april 2021 against a planned 2017), 2021. Abu Dhabi Government Media Office, release on Barakah Unit 4 commercial operation (statement of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation), retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The UAE federal government set a nuclear policy in 2008, created an independent regulator (FANR) and a single owner-developer (ENEC), and bought a proven reactor design with a turnkey contract, so the state managed one prime contractor against one reference plant rather than a first-of-a-kind design.

Preconditions

  • A sovereign balance sheet able to finance a multi-unit plant over a decade of construction and delay
  • A regulator built from scratch with foreign technical support, credible enough to hold the schedule back when licensing required it
  • A vendor with a recent reference plant and an intact domestic supply chain willing to export it

Where else it has been used: The turnkey, reference-plant model is what newcomer states such as Saudi Arabia and Poland cite; the four-year first-unit slip shows the regulator and operator readiness, not the construction, set the pace.

Limits: The 25 percent is the operator reporting on itself, relayed by the Abu Dhabi government's media office, and it is phrased as "up to": it is a capacity claim, not a measured share of national generation in a given year, and no statistical series was opened to confirm it. The schedule figure is computed by us from two documents, a 2012 regulator statement that the first unit was planned for 2017 and the 2021 commercial-operation release; it is a slip of roughly four years for Unit 1 only, and the later units' original dates were not found at an official URL. The plant's construction cost, and any cost overrun, are not published in any source opened, so the cost half of the construct is missing. The reactors were designed and built by a KEPCO-led Korean consortium on the Shin-Kori 3 and 4 reference design, so the UAE's institutional contribution is commissioning, licensing, financing and operating, not engineering. ENEC is an Abu Dhabi entity and the plant sits in one emirate, though it supplies the national grid under federal regulation. The operator's own boast of "a 40 per cent improvement in schedule" from Unit 1 to Unit 4 measures operational readiness to commercial operation, not construction, and is not used here.