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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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4 of 742 deliveries

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Ethiopiasince 2010operating below its peakbears on Adult learning participation

Integrated Functional Adult Education, and its erosion

Ethiopia's Ministry of Education rolled out Integrated Functional Adult Education nationally from 2010/11 and enrolled 6,903,065 adults in 2015/16, but its successor Adult Basic Education Program enrolled 1,392,635 adults in 2024/25, about a fifth of the peak.

1,392,635 adults, adults enrolled in the adult basic education program, 2024/25. 6,903,065 adults, adults enrolled in integrated functional adult education at the 2015/16 peak, 2015/16. Federal Ministry of Education of Ethiopia, EMIS and ICT Executive Office, Education Statistics Annual Abstract 2024/25 (2017 E.C.), retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The Ministry of Education built a national adult literacy programme run through regional education bureaus and community learning centres, then let enrolment fall by most of its peak as the programme was restructured and conflict removed whole regions from reporting.

Preconditions

  • Regional education bureaus and kebele-level centres able to recruit facilitators and enrol adults at scale
  • A national campaign target, here ESDP IV's goal to cut adult illiteracy, that kept enrolment a political priority
  • Peace and administrative reach across regions, which the Amhara and Tigray conflicts removed

Where else it has been used: Mass literacy campaigns travel as enrolment drives; the Ethiopian series shows the reach depends on keeping the delivery network funded and present after the campaign target lapses.

Limits: The 2024/25 count excludes Amhara and Tigray, which reported nothing because of conflict, and Amhara alone held 43 percent of IFAE enrolment in 2015/16; removing Amhara and Tigray, both absent in 2024/25, from the 2015/16 peak still leaves 3,450,597 against 1,392,635 (2,038,631 with Education Light), a figure we computed from Table 6.2 of the 2015/16 abstract and the ministry does not publish. The two numbers are not one series: the two-year IFAE became a one-year Adult Basic Education programme, and the 2024/25 abstract reports a separate Education Light/Torch track of 645,996 adults, so total adult enrolment that year was 2,038,631. All figures are administrative enrolment reported by regional bureaus to the ministry, with no attendance, completion quality or literacy outcome attached, and enrolment is not the construct's share of adults in education and training. The 2024/25 abstract has no stable PDF URL: it downloads from a button on the ministry's annual abstract page, so a checker must download it there and read PDF pages 63 to 64, printed pages 54 to 55 (sections 5.2 and 5.3, Table 5.1). The 2015/16 figure comes from a separate abstract PDF. The 2024/25 abstract also reports that 13,015,641 adults completed or graduated from IFAL/ABE between 2016/17 and 2024/25, so a shrinking pool of illiterate adults is a competing explanation for part of the fall.

Adaptability

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

Ethiopiasince 2005still operatingbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Productive Safety Net Programme for drought resilience

Ethiopia's government-run Productive Safety Net Programme reached about 8 million people, while 6.8 million received short-term employment in public-works activities that support household income and community resilience.

8,000,000 people, people benefiting from the productive safety net programme, 2026-02-28. 6,800,000 people, people receiving short-term public-works employment, 2026-02-28. World Bank Group, Ethiopia country programme overview, retrieved 2026-08-31.

The move, and what it needed

Ethiopia made drought support predictable through a national safety-net platform that combines transfers for labour-poor households with public works and can scale assistance when shocks arrive. The programme links immediate consumption protection to land, water and community assets rather than treating relief as a one-off distribution.

Preconditions

  • A household and geographic targeting system that can identify chronic food insecurity before a crisis peaks
  • Local administrative and public-works capacity able to deliver cash, food or employment across remote districts
  • Early-warning and financing arrangements that release additional support when drought or other shocks exceed normal programme capacity

Where else it has been used: Shock-responsive safety nets travel when predictable core transfers and scalable emergency finance share one delivery system; a relief fund without that backbone cannot expand quickly when conditions change.

Limits: Beneficiary and public-works counts show administrative reach, not whether transfers arrive on time, food security improves, assets survive drought or households graduate from support. The World Bank summary describes a government programme supported by development partners and does not replace an independent impact evaluation or a complete account of conflict-affected regions.

Ethiopiasince 2024still operatingbears on Institutional responsiveness

Floating the birr, July 2024

The National Bank of Ethiopia floated the birr on 29 July 2024, and by 20 September the former official rate had moved from 57.8 to an indicative 119.2 birr per US dollar while the parallel-market spread over it fell from 96 percent to around 5 percent.

5 %, parallel-market spread over the nbe indicative rate (around), 2024-09-20. 96 %, parallel-market spread over the official rate before the float, 2024-07-26. International Monetary Fund, Country Report No. 24/318, Ethiopia: First Review Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement, staff report, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The central bank replaced an administered exchange rate with a market-determined one in a single directive, moved FX surrender from itself to commercial banks and lifted import bans and controls at the same time, while tight monetary policy held the new rate near the old parallel rate.

Preconditions

  • External financing (here the IMF arrangement) large enough to absorb the transition
  • A central bank able to tighten liquidity enough to stop the float turning into a spiral
  • Commercial banks able to quote and report FX rates daily

Where else it has been used: Egypt (2016) and Nigeria (2023 to 2024) unified rates under similar pressure; Cuba's 2021 unification (cub-ordenamiento) fragmented again, which is what the widening to 16 percent in October 2024 warned of here.

Limits: The numbers are in paragraph 6 of the staff report ('moving from 57.8 birr per US dollar on July 26 to an indicative rate of 119.2 on September 20 ... The parallel market spread to the indicative rate collapsed from 96 percent to around 5 percent over the same period'); the eLibrary HTML has no page numbers. The 5 is approximate as published. What responded fast was the rule change once decided, not the decision: the report estimates the overvaluation at 52 percent in 2022/23, so the distortion was years old, and the float was a prior action for the IMF arrangement approved on 29 July 2024, while Ethiopia was seeking a debt restructuring, with calls to Eurobond holders held from December 2023. Responsiveness here is a government acting under financing pressure and external conditionality, not on its own timetable. The same paragraph says FX liquidity stayed limited and the interbank market inactive, and the second review (Country Report 25/027) records the premium widening to a peak of 16 percent on 22 October 2024 before falling back to single digits. The IMF is a party to the programme and its staff assessment is not an independent evaluation; the costs of the depreciation (inflation pass-through, the burden on importers and households) are not shown by this number.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Ethiopiasince 2015delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery

Modjo-Hawassa expressway, World Bank-financed Lot 3

The Ethiopian Roads Administration built the 57.4 km Batu/Zeway-Arsi Negele section (Lot 3) of the 202 km Modjo-Hawassa expressway under a project that became effective in 2015. The civil works were substantially complete by mid-2026, but only after cumulative extensions of 57 months to the project's closing date.

57 months, cumulative extension of the project closing date, 2026-06. 57.4 km, expressway constructed on lot 3 (asphalt concrete completed), 2026-02-25. World Bank, Ethiopia Expressway Development Support Project (P148850), restructuring project paper, June 2026, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The Ethiopian Roads Administration split a 202 km toll expressway into lots with different financiers: Bank-financed, government-financed and Chinese EXIM-financed. It carried the World Bank lot through material shortages, contract suspensions and repeated restructurings until the civil works were done.

Preconditions

  • A roads authority able to manage several international contracts and financiers on one corridor
  • Foreign-exchange and fiscal headroom to absorb price escalation
  • Land acquisition and compensation processes that do not stall works, which here still leave grievances before the courts

Limits: This is one 57 km road section, not a national programme, and the schedule figure is a slip in the World Bank financing's closing date, not a construction schedule measured against a contractual completion date. The 57 months run from the original 31 December 2021 closing to 30 September 2026, and part of that time came before Lot 3 works began: the paper says phase 2 started about two years after phase 1. The World Bank documents name cost overruns from material price inflation but give no figure, and the financing was partly cancelled (about 105 million dollars cumulatively by June 2026, including 9.31 million on the additional-financing credit) and topped up with 37 million in additional financing, so no cost-performance number can be drawn from them. The status 'concluded' is provisional. The road had been provisionally taken over by the roads authority, but the documents tie public opening to installing tolling and transport systems, which were moved to another project, and no source seen here confirms the section is open to traffic. Lots 1 and 2 have been open since September 2021, while Lot 4 is financed by China EXIM Bank and is not covered. All figures are the World Bank's own supervision reporting on a project it finances.