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 mechanism6 of 742 deliveries

Coordination

1 delivery linked to Public-private collaboration.

Ghanasince 2018still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

Sankofa Gas Project (Offshore Cape Three Points)

Ghana structured the Sankofa offshore gas development as a public-private deal in which Eni and Vitol invested and the state oil company GNPC bought the gas under take-or-pay terms backed by an IDA payment guarantee, mobilising US$4,653 million of private capital and bringing first gas to power plants in 2018.

4,653 US$ million, private sector capital mobilized for the sankofa gas field development, 2018. 90 million standard cubic feet per day, average daily gas off-take in 2019, against take-or-pay volume of 170 mmscfd, 2019. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR 147538-GH, Ghana Sankofa Gas Project (P152670), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Government of Ghana and GNPC contracted to buy domestic gas from a privately financed offshore field on take-or-pay terms, and the World Bank guaranteed those payments so that private sponsors and banks would commit capital to a sub-Saharan gas project.

Preconditions

A proven offshore gas discovery and an international operator willing to develop it
A multilateral guarantee to cover the sovereign's payment risk
A power sector able to pay for the gas, which Ghana's state utilities could not do on time

Limits: The capital was private and the build was done by the Eni-Vitol consortium; Ghana's institutional move was the deal structure and the offtake, and that side performed worst. GNPC could not pay: arrears reached US$192 million by March 2020 and the sponsors drew US$191.6 million on the letter of credit backed by the IDA guarantee, so the public half of the partnership needed a World Bank backstop within two years of first gas. Off-take in 2018 and 2019 was a fraction of the 170 mmscfd the state contracted to take or pay for, because the pipeline interconnector to the eastern market was late and demand in the west was too small, which means Ghana paid for gas it did not use. The source is the World Bank's own completion report on its own guarantee, written in 2020, and its figures are not published as a machine-readable series; the source stops in mid-2020. One deal, however large, says little about the frequency of public-private delivery the indicator asks for.

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Ghanasince 1992operating below its peakbears on Adult learning participation

National Functional Literacy Programme, and its erosion

Ghana's Non-Formal Education Division enrolled 312,907 adults in a single National Functional Literacy Programme batch in 2003-2005, and after donor funding ended in 2006 the government-funded batches shrank to 14,029 learners in the 2014-2016 batch.

14,029 learners enrolled per batch, learners enrolled in nflp local-language batch 19 (2014/16), 2014-2016. 312,907 learners enrolled per batch, learners enrolled in nflp batch 9 (feb 2003/2005), the largest single batch, 2003-2005. Ministry of Education, Ghana, Education Sector Performance Report 2018 (hosted by the National Development Planning Commission), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Ministry of Education's Non-Formal Education Division ran 21-month local-language literacy classes in every region through volunteer facilitators, scaled them with an IDA credit to about 200,000 to 300,000 enrolments per batch, and then carried the programme on a government budget line that funded a fraction of that after 2006.

Preconditions

A volunteer facilitator network and primers in 15 Ghanaian languages
External credit financing most of the cost at peak
A domestic budget line large enough to replace the donor share, which is what did not happen

Limits: The two numbers come from two different Ministry of Education reports, and both are administrative enrolment counts reported upward by district supervisors; the 2013 report says monitoring visits to verify figures had not been possible since 2010 for lack of funds, and the 2018 report restates Batch 18 at 44,730 where the 2013 report had 51,257, so the series is revised without explanation. A batch runs about 21 months and batches overlap (Batch 10 ran November 2003 to 2005 alongside Batch 9), so a per-batch count is not a 12-month participation rate, and the peak-year total across overlapping batches was higher than the single batch quoted. The programme teaches basic literacy, which is one narrow slice of the adult learning the indicator asks about, and even the peak batch was a few percent of Ghana's adults. The 2003-2005 peak was financed mostly by an IDA credit: US$33.86 million of US$44.94 million in project costs (World Bank ICR535, IDA-3246, P000974), so the erosion partly measures a donor exit rather than a domestic choice. The 2018 report also shows a separate Basic English Literacy track (17,647 learners in 2016/18) that partly offsets the fall. The record carries no figure after the 2014-2016 batch.

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Firms through regulatory sandboxes.

Ghanasince 2026still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes

Bank of Ghana Regulatory Sandbox

The Bank of Ghana, which launched a regulatory and innovation sandbox pilot in 2021, admitted six firms into its Regulatory Sandbox for one year in January 2026 to test the exchange, custody, administration and issuance of virtual assets.

6 firms, entities admitted into the bank of ghana regulatory sandbox (virtual assets cohort), 2026-01. Bank of Ghana, press release 'List of participants - Regulatory Sandbox', 22 January 2026, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Bank of Ghana's FinTech and Innovation Office admits named firms for a fixed one-year test under supervision, using each cohort to validate rules it has not yet issued, here for virtual assets.

Preconditions

A central bank FinTech office with staff to supervise individual tests
A legal basis to grant time-limited, conditional permission outside existing licences
A pending regulatory question concrete enough to define a cohort around

Limits: The metric is a count of six firms in one cohort, taken from a press release rather than a statistical series; divided by Ghana's population it is well under one firm per million people. It counts admissions only, not completions or exits. The 2021 launch was a pilot run with EMTECH Service LLC, not a documented admission, so the start year is the first documented admission, 2026. The indicator sums every regulator in the country, and this record covers the Bank of Ghana only. A sandbox at this scale is evidence that the instrument exists and is used, not that it operates at national scale in the sense of a mass programme.

Adaptability

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

Ghanasince 2022delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, December 2022 to February 2023

After losing market access and requesting IMF support in July 2022, Ghana's government launched a domestic debt exchange on 5 December 2022 covering all medium- and long-term local-currency government, Daakye and ESLA bonds, and settled it on 21 February 2023 with 85 percent of the face value of bonds held by investors other than pension funds exchanged, giving almost GHS 50 billion of cash debt relief in 2023.

85 %, share of the face value of eligible bonds held by investors other than pension funds exchanged in the dde, 2023-02-21. 78 days, days from launch of the exchange (5 december 2022) to settlement (21 february 2023), computed, 2023-02-21. International Monetary Fund, Country Report No. 23/168, Ghana: Request for an Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility, staff report, Box 2 (copy hosted by the Ministry of Finance of Ghana), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Ministry of Finance offered domestic bondholders a menu of new longer, lower-coupon bonds at fixed ratios with a deadline, renegotiated the perimeter (exempting pension funds and adjusting terms for individuals) during the offer, and closed within eleven weeks so the IMF programme could be approved.

Preconditions

A domestic bond market concentrated in a few banks and institutions that could be negotiated with directly
A central depository able to swap instruments on a fixed settlement date
An external anchor (the IMF arrangement) that made the exchange a precondition for financing

Where else it has been used: Jamaica's 2010 and 2013 domestic exchanges are the template Ghana's design follows; Sri Lanka's 2023 domestic optimisation used a similar perimeter carve-out for pension funds.

Limits: The figures are in Box 2 of the staff report (PDF page 22, printed page 18) and the July 2022 request for IMF support is in the debt sustainability annex (PDF page 95); the URL is the Ministry of Finance's copy of the IMF report, because imf.org returned an HTML bot page to a script. The 78 days is computed by us from the two dates in Box 2. The IMF is a party to the programme the exchange was a prior condition for, so this is not an independent evaluation. The speed is of the rule change once decided: the fiscal and debt pressures that forced it built up over years and Ghana lost market access in 2022, so a responsive state would arguably have acted earlier and with less damage. The 85 percent covers only the eligible perimeter: pension funds, about 20 percent of eligible debt, were excluded after bondholder protests, and 85 percent equals only 28 percent of all domestic debt; dollar bonds and Cocobills needed later exchanges. The exchange imposed an average NPV loss of about 30 percent on bondholders, weakened bank balance sheets and was contested in court and on the street; the number shows the operation closed fast, not that its costs were well distributed.

Ghanasince 2022delivered and closedbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Ghana's 2022 Marburg virus disease response

Ghana's Ministry of Health declared the country's first Marburg virus disease outbreak on 7 July 2022, identified and monitored 198 contacts through 42 days, and declared the outbreak over on 16 September 2022 after three confirmed cases, all from one household, and two deaths.

198 contacts, contacts identified, monitored and completed observation, 2022-09-16. 3 confirmed cases, confirmed marburg cases (two deaths, cfr 67 percent), 2022-09-16. World Health Organization, Disease Outbreak News, Marburg virus disease - Ghana (2022-DON409), 26 September 2022, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Ghana Health Service ran its integrated disease surveillance and response system: a suspected viral haemorrhagic fever was tested at the national reference laboratory, the ministry declared the outbreak, traced and followed every contact for 42 days and isolated the remaining case in a designated centre.

Preconditions

An integrated disease surveillance and response system reporting from district level
A national laboratory able to test for filoviruses
Designated isolation facilities and contact tracing teams ready before the event

Where else it has been used: Rwanda's 2024 Marburg response (rwa-marburg-2024) ran the same playbook at twenty times the case count.

Limits: Three cases in one household is a very small event, and containing it shows that surveillance and contact tracing worked once, not a standing national capacity; a small outbreak can end quickly by luck of the transmission chain. Detection was late for the first case: the index patient was admitted on 26 June and died the next day, and a second household member, a child, was infected and died before isolation, so two of three cases were fatal. The figures are WHO's restatement of Ministry of Health reports, so the government is reporting on its own response, with WHO and partners in support. The national laboratory (Noguchi Memorial Institute) confirmed the virus, but Institut Pasteur Dakar's confirmation was part of the timeline, as the DON describes. The record says nothing about Ghana's response to other shocks such as the 2023 Akosombo dam spillage floods.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Ghanasince 2007delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery

Accra bus rapid transit under the Ghana Urban Transport Project, and its cancellation

Ghana's Department of Urban Roads, joined in 2012 by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, set out in 2007 to build Sub-Saharan Africa's first bus rapid transit corridor in Accra for an estimated US$46 million of infrastructure, but after a design review raised that estimate to US$100.7 million and counterpart funds did not arrive, the BRT was dropped in the 2014 restructuring without its 9.1 km of dedicated lanes being built, and the project closed in December 2015, 35.5 months after its original December 2012 closing date.

100.7 million US dollars, revised cost estimate for the brt infrastructure after the 2013 design review, 2013. 46 million US dollars, original cost estimate for the brt infrastructure (component 3), 2007. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Ghana Urban Transport Project (P100619, P092509), January 2017, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

Two government agencies split responsibility for the roads and the buses of a first-of-its-kind BRT, tendered it before the design was complete, and when bids came in at double the estimate and the treasury could not pay its share, cut the corridor and spent the remaining credit on cheaper bus lanes elsewhere.

Preconditions

A new transit mode with no domestic design or operating precedent
An appraisal without an up-to-date land use plan or transport master plan for the city
Counterpart funding that depended on the annual budget rather than a ring-fenced allocation

Limits: The source is the World Bank's own completion report on a project it financed with AFD and GEF money, and it rates the outcome Unsatisfactory, so it judges the Bank's design as well as Ghana's delivery: the report says the BRT design was not fully developed at appraisal and that bid documents were prepared during implementation. The US$100.7 million is a revised estimate, not money spent, because the BRT was cancelled before Lots 2 and 3 were contracted; what was built under Lot 1 (the Odaw Bridge expansion and a railway flyover) cost US$14.7 million against US$9.2 million estimated, a 60 percent overrun. The 35.5 months is computed from the original and actual closing dates in the report's key dates table (31 December 2012 and 15 December 2015); the text gives the extensions as 29.5 months for two of them. The remaining funds went to quality bus services on two other corridors, which were not operating at closure. What happened to bus services in Accra after 2015 is not covered here.