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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SearchCountryCapabilityStatusWith a mechanism5 of 742 deliveries

Coordination

1 delivery linked to Public-private collaboration.

Bangladeshsince 2010still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

Public Private Partnership Authority project portfolio

Bangladesh's Public Private Partnership Authority listed 81 projects in its portfolio as last updated on 19 August 2026, of which four were in operation (including Patenga Container Terminal, the NIKDU and Chittagong haemodialysis centres and two Info-Sarkar 3 rural broadband components), three were partly operating while still under construction (among them the Dhaka Elevated Expressway), and 10 were under construction.

7 of 81 portfolio projects (4 operational, 3 partial operation and construction), ppp projects in operation, fully or partly, 2026-08-19. 10 projects, ppp projects under construction, 2026-08-19. Public Private Partnership Authority Bangladesh, PPP projects list, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

A dedicated authority under the head of government screens line-ministry projects, runs procurement with technical assistance and viability gap funds, and takes them to the economic cabinet committee for approval and award.

Preconditions

A PPP law (2015) and rules for viability gap funding and unsolicited proposals
Line ministries willing to give up projects they could fund from the development budget
Investors willing to take Bangladeshi currency and land risk, which is the precondition the low operating count suggests is scarce

Limits: The counts are ours, tallied from the stage column of the authority's project list, which the page says was last updated on 19 August 2026 and which was read on 2026-10-02; the page gives no totals, and it reports stages, not dates of financial close or of operation. Two of the four operating entries are components of one rural broadband project (Info-Sarkar 3), so the operating count overstates distinct partnerships by one. The authority promotes its own portfolio. The headline is how little has reached operation: 7 of 81 projects after some 16 years, with 24 still at feasibility study and 6 at conditions-precedent stage, so the record documents scale of activity more than delivery. Several listed projects are land leases for commercial development (shopping malls, textile mills on state land), not public services. The Dhaka Elevated Expressway opened in parts against long delays. A 2026 Invest Bangladesh Act appears on the same site and may reorganise the authority; its Bangla text could not be read in this session, so the record does not say whether the authority continues in its current form.

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Bangladeshsince 1991operating below its peakbears on Adult learning participation

National adult literacy projects of the Bureau of Non-Formal Education, and their erosion

Bangladesh's Bureau of Non-Formal Education ran national adult literacy projects that reached 9.23 million learners aged 11 to 45 under the Total Literacy Movement project of 1997 to 2003, then 4.46 million aged 15 to 45 under the Basic Literacy Project (64 districts) of 2014 to 2022. Its only programme for learners above school age the bureau lists after June 2022 is a pre-vocational course that reached 4,198 people aged 14 to 24 in 2025-26.

4,459,000 learners (published as 44.59 lakh), learners reached, basic literacy project (64 districts), feb 2014 to jun 2022, 2014-02/2022-06. 9,225,000 learners (published as 92.25 lakh), peak: learners reached, non-formal education project-4 (total literacy movement), apr 1997 to jun 2003, 1997-04/2003-06. Bureau of Non-Formal Education, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Government of Bangladesh: implemented projects table, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Bureau of Non-Formal Education used development-budget projects to fund literacy courses, delivered by district administrations or contracted NGOs, in every district. When a project window closed, delivery stopped until the next project was approved, and after 2022 no adult-scale successor followed.

Preconditions

A standing bureau with a district presence to plan and monitor courses
Development-budget approval for each time-bound project, often with donor co-finance
NGOs or district administrations able to run community learning centres at scale

Where else it has been used: Time-bound literacy campaigns financed project by project were common across South Asia in the 1990s. The pattern they share is the one here: large one-off reach, then a gap when the project closes.

Limits: These are the implementing bureau's own counts of learners it reports as reached. The page does not say how a learner was counted or whether literacy was tested. The numbers cover multi-year project windows and not the last 12 months, which is what the indicator asks. Spread over each window they are small against the adult population: roughly 0.5 million a year for 2014 to 2022 and 1.5 million a year for 1997 to 2003, both converted from lakh by us. The peak is itself a shortfall: the 1997 to 2003 project reached 92.25 lakh against a target of 228.89 lakh, about 40 percent. A hostile reviewer would say most of the fall reflects fewer illiterate adults to reach, since primary enrolment rose over the period, and not lost capacity. Nothing here measures that need, so the erosion is in delivery scale and not in a participation rate. The projects run as separate time-bound windows with gaps between them, so calling them one delivery is our reading. Both age bands include non-adults: the 1997 to 2003 project counted learners from age 11 and the 2014 to 2022 project from age 15, so part of each count is children and adolescents. The 2025-26 figure is a different course for ages 14 to 24 and is not a like-for-like successor. Basic Literacy Project teaching was contracted to NGOs. The page is a Bengali table on a government portal, and the values are read off its rows.

Adaptability

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

Bangladeshsince 1973still operatingbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Cyclone Preparedness Programme

Before Cyclone Remal made landfall on 26 May 2024, Bangladesh's government-run cyclone early warning and evacuation system moved about 0.8 million people into 9,424 evacuation shelters across 19 districts. The UN-coordinated response plan records 16 deaths among 4.6 million people affected.

800,000 people, people pre-emptively evacuated to shelters ahead of cyclone remal landfall, 2024-05. 16 deaths, lives lost in cyclone remal (government assessment as reported in the plan), 2024-05. UN Resident Coordinator's Office and Humanitarian Coordination Task Team, Bangladesh: Cyclone Remal Humanitarian Response Plan (June to December 2024), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The government took over the cost of a Red Crescent volunteer warning network in 1973 and ran it jointly with the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society. Village volunteers relay meteorological department signals door to door and move people into shelters before landfall.

Preconditions

A meteorological service able to issue track forecasts days ahead of landfall
A shelter stock within walking distance of exposed coastal villages
A volunteer corps, trained and equipped, kept active in years without a major storm

Where else it has been used: The volunteer-relay model shaped community early warning in Odisha and Myanmar. Copies tend to keep the sirens and drop the standing volunteer corps, which is the part that turns a warning into an evacuation.

Limits: The evacuation and death figures are the government's own preliminary counts, repeated in a UN appeal document whose job is to raise funds. They are not an independent audit. The figures cover one cyclone, and Remal's death toll depended on its track, timing and surge as well as on preparedness. The plan credits the Cyclone Preparedness Programme with helping develop the warnings, but it does not attribute the evacuation to it alone: district administrations, shelters built under other programmes and anticipatory-action partners all took part. The plan states no baseline, so the record shows one storm's outcome and not a trend. The same document records 4.6 million people affected and 173,866 houses damaged or destroyed, so the system protected lives far more than it protected housing and livelihoods. The construct also covers recovery, which this number does not show. The figure sits inside a PDF.

Bangladeshsince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

COVID-19 frontloading of old age, widow and disability allowances

Bangladesh's Department of Social Services paid old age, widow and disability allowance entitlements early from 25 March 2020 to 30 June 2020, reaching about 4.36 million beneficiaries through its digital government-to-person payment system, and the World Bank reimbursed US$165.84 million within 16 days of the government's July 2020 request.

4.36 million beneficiaries, beneficiaries receiving cash transfers financed under the covid-19 contingent emergency component, 2020-06. 16 days, days from the government's request to full disbursement of the emergency financing, 2020-08-12. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Bangladesh Cash Transfer Modernization Project (P160819), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The social services department advanced payment of existing allowances through the government-to-person system that pays straight into beneficiaries' bank and mobile money accounts, and a contingent emergency component in an existing World Bank loan refinanced the outlay after the fact.

Preconditions

A government-to-person payment platform already paying allowances into individual accounts
Mobile money accounts held by most beneficiaries
A contingent emergency clause in an active loan, so that refinancing did not need a new operation

Limits: The figures are in a PDF: the 4.36 million in paragraph 44 (page 10) and indicator I.11, and the dates in Annex 6 (page 31). The World Bank financed the project and the ICR praises its own instrument: the 16 days measure how fast the Bank reimbursed spending already made, not how fast the government acted, since the financing was retroactive for transfers paid from 25 March to 30 June 2020. The government's own change was modest: it paid existing beneficiaries of existing allowances early and through mobile money, and the source reports no new beneficiaries; other COVID-19 transfers paid outside these allowances are not covered by this record. The ICR also records the limits of shock response: Component 5, a cash transfer for people injured in the 2024 uprising, had policies and systems in place but was never paid, because the government's prefinancing did not arrive, and the allocation was cancelled. The poverty database meant to target new shocks (the National Household Database) never became usable.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Bangladeshsince 2009delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery

Padma Multipurpose Bridge

Bangladesh's Bridge Authority completed the 6.15 km Padma road-rail bridge with government funds. It opened to traffic on 26 June 2022 at a reported actual cost of Tk 30,770 crore, six and a half years after the 31 December 2015 completion date in the 2010 Asian Development Bank appraisal, which had costed the project at $2,915 million.

30,770.14 Tk crore (published as 3,077,013.55 lakh taka), actual project cost reported by the bangladesh bridge authority, 2024-06. 2,915 US$ million, August 2010 prices, appraised total project cost and completion date, adb report and recommendation of the president (completion 31 dec 2015), 2010-11. Bangladesh Bridge Authority, Bridges Division, Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges: Padma Bridge project page, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

After its external co-financing package changed, the government kept the Bridge Authority as executing agency and paid for the bridge from its own budget. The Authority revised the project document as costs rose and opened the road deck in 2022, with rail running on the lower deck since.

Preconditions

A fiscal position able to absorb a multi-billion-dollar project without concessional lenders
A specialised bridge authority with a design and supervision record from the earlier Jamuna Bridge
Political commitment strong enough to carry repeated cost and schedule revisions

Where else it has been used: Self-financing a flagship after donors withdraw is rare. Where it has been tried, the usual result is the one here: the asset was delivered, and its cost and schedule were judged against shifting baselines.

Limits: Neither source publishes an overrun percentage. Converting the ADB appraisal at the RRP's own rate of Tk 70.11 per dollar gives about Tk 20,440 crore, so the actual cost is about 51 percent higher. That figure is our computation, and it mixes a 2010 dollar estimate with a taka outturn after more than a decade of taka depreciation and inflation, so much of the gap is currency and price level, not overrun. The ADB estimate includes $99 million of financing charges and appraised a co-financed project. The bridge was built with government funds, as the Bridge Authority page states, after that financing structure changed, so the two figures do not describe the same contract package. Against the government's own revised estimates on the same page, the outturn is about 5 percent below the Tk 32,306 crore figure and about 2 percent above the Tk 30,193 crore figure, which is why the cost record depends on which baseline is chosen. The Bridge Authority page is itself inconsistent: it lists two different estimates under the third revised project document. The schedule slip is clearer: an appraised completion of December 2015 against road opening in June 2022 and project closure in June 2024. The started year is the project start the Bridge Authority states, before main construction contracts were let.