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NCBNational Capability Benchmark
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Challenge the benchmark

Choose a score and give the benchmark a specific reason to reconsider it.

The selected score and confidence are read from the current country file when you submit.

Submissions are public and start as awaiting review. A maintainer can add a response and signature after review.

What countries built

Each record describes something a country built that the indicators miss. The source provides the number; the mechanism is our interpretation.

Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 204 of 204 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.

Narrow the list

3 of 204 deliveries

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Francesince 2015still operatingbears on Adult learning participation

Compte personnel de formation

France's Compte personnel de formation generated 1,387,500 training starts in 2024, with 1,232,100 people entering a CPF-funded course through the national account and platform.

1,387,500 training starts, cpf-funded training starts, 2024. 1,232,100 people, people entering cpf-funded training, 2024. French Ministry of Labour, DARES Results: Le compte personnel de formation en 2024, retrieved 2026-08-31.

The move, and what it needed

France gave individuals a portable training entitlement, then put the account, catalogue, identity checks and payment flow into one national platform managed by the Caisse des Dépôts. The design lets workers choose a course while public employment services and employers can add targeted funding.

Preconditions

  • A national entitlement and contribution system that records rights across employers and employment spells
  • A trusted digital identity, provider catalogue and payment system that can verify courses and prevent fraud
  • Quality assurance and co-funding rules that keep a large open marketplace from becoming a directory of low-value training

Where it travelled: Individual learning accounts travel when entitlement portability is paired with provider quality controls and guidance; a wallet without trusted course information can increase transactions without increasing skills.

Limits: Training starts and participant counts show use of a public financing and matching platform, not course completion, learning quality, job mobility, wage gains or equal access. DARES notes major catalogue and contribution-rule changes during 2024, including the motorcycle-licence expansion and a €100 co-payment, so year-on-year totals are not a pure measure of underlying learning demand.

Adaptability

1 delivery linked to Long-term unemployment share.

Francesince 1975still operatingbears on Long-term unemployment share

France's long-term unemployment decline

France's national statistics office Insee reported that people unemployed for at least one year represented 23.3% of all unemployed people in 2024, while the long-term unemployment rate was 1.7% of the active population, down from 3.1% in 2015.

23.3 % of unemployed, long-term unemployed as share of all unemployed, 2024. 1.7 % of active population, long-term unemployment rate, 2024. Insee, Evolution du chômage / Employment Survey 2024, retrieved 2026-08-31.

The move, and what it needed

France's employment system combines unemployment insurance, employment-service counselling and targeted training or hiring support, helping some jobseekers move through the labour market before unemployment becomes persistent. The falling long-term rate is an outcome to investigate, not proof that one programme caused it.

Preconditions

  • A labour-force survey and employment-service records that distinguish duration consistently
  • Income support and active labour-market services that preserve contact with jobseekers while they search
  • Employers, training providers and regional intermediaries able to convert counselling into credible vacancies or skill transitions

Where it travelled: Long-term-unemployment reductions travel when income support, matching and skills services are connected to real employer demand; a falling rate can otherwise reflect exits from the labour force rather than successful re-employment.

Limits: The figures describe labour-market duration, not the causes of unemployment, the quality of re-employment or whether training and employment services produced the decline. Insee's household-survey definitions and population scope matter, and a low long-term share can coexist with high short-term churn or discouraged workers outside the unemployment measure.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Francesince 2007operating below its peakbears on Large project delivery

Flamanville 3 EPR, and the erosion of nuclear new-build delivery

France's Flamanville 3 EPR took about 16.5 years from construction beginning in September 2007 to completion in early 2024, and its commissioning was the country's first new nuclear reactor since Civaux 2 in 1999, a 25-year gap.

16.5 years, construction duration, 2024. 25 years, gap since the previous french reactor commissioning, 2024. French Nuclear Safety Authority, oversight of the Flamanville EPR, retrieved 2026-08-31.

The move, and what it needed

A state-backed utility attempted a first-of-kind reactor after a long pause in domestic nuclear construction, while the regulator accumulated inspections and prescriptions as construction, manufacturing and testing problems appeared; the project delivered, but the decade-plus gap exposed how much build-and-supply-chain capability had gone unused.

Preconditions

  • A utility and regulator able to retain nuclear engineering knowledge through a long construction pause
  • A supply chain capable of qualifying safety-critical components to current standards
  • Political and financial capacity to carry a first-of-kind project through repeated redesigns

Where it travelled: The EPR experience is now being used in France, Finland, China and the United Kingdom as a common warning about first-of-kind nuclear delivery. The lesson that travels is to rebuild the industrial base before promising a fleet, not to copy the reactor design alone.

Limits: The durations are calculated from the start and completion dates and from the previous commissioning date stated by the regulator; they do not isolate the causes of delay, the project's cost or the reactor's long-run availability. Flamanville eventually entered service and the regulator reports nearly 600 construction inspections, so the case documents a thin and difficult delivery capability rather than a project that never completed. The regulator describes its own oversight and is not an independent cost auditor.