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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

Coordination

1 delivery linked to Public-private collaboration.

Hungarysince 2013delivered and closedbears on Public-private collaboration

Funding for Growth Scheme (Novekedesi Hitelprogram), central bank refinancing lent by commercial banks

Hungary's central bank refinanced commercial banks at zero interest on condition that they lent to small and medium firms at a capped margin under the Funding for Growth Scheme, and across its phases from June 2013 to 2022 some 75 thousand enterprises received about HUF 6,400 billion of loans, more than half of them investment loans.

75,000 enterprises (some), enterprises that gained access to fgs loans across all phases, 2013-2022. 6,400 HUF billion (approximately), loans granted under all fgs phases, 2013-2022. Magyar Nemzeti Bank, From the turnaround in lending to the green transition: collection of studies on the nine years of the Funding for Growth Scheme to date, 2013-2022, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The central bank offered banks zero-cost refinancing for loans to small and medium firms on condition that they cap the client rate, so banks did the origination, credit assessment and servicing while the central bank bore the funding cost.

Preconditions

  • A central bank willing to run a targeted quasi-fiscal programme on its own balance sheet
  • A banking sector with branch networks reaching small firms nationwide
  • Low inflation at launch, so zero-rate refinancing did not fight monetary policy, which ceased to hold by 2022

Where else it has been used: The design follows the Bank of England's Funding for Lending Scheme (2012); Hungary ran it longer and steered it to fixed-rate investment loans, and the end of low inflation closed it.

Limits: The central bank designed, financed and here evaluates its own scheme; both headline numbers are rounded ('some', 'approximately') and appear in a PDF on page 7 and again on pages 9 and 20; the MNB also publishes a Power BI dashboard of the loans that a script cannot read. The MNB carried the funding cost and banks the credit risk, so the partnership was a public subsidy delivered by private lenders, with the policy cost sitting off budget on the central bank's balance sheet. The book's estimate that the scheme added more than 5 percentage points to GDP between 2013 and 2021 is the MNB's own model result and is not used here. Enterprises are counted across phases (FGS 1 to 3, FGS fix, FGS Go!, Green Home), so the 75 thousand cannot be compared with the stock of firms in any one year, and the volumes include refinanced foreign currency loans in the first phase. Some lending would have happened without the subsidy; the record does not measure additionality.

Adaptability

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

Hungarysince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

Automatic loan repayment moratorium, March 2020

On 18 March 2020 Hungary's Government introduced a repayment moratorium until the end of 2020 that applied automatically to household and corporate loans disbursed before that date, and by June 2020 about 1.6 million of the roughly 2.7 million household borrowers used it on at least one loan, while 44 percent of corporate loans outstanding were in moratorium at the end of the second quarter.

1.6 million household customers, household customers using the moratorium on at least one loan (around 60 percent of about 2.7 million), 2020-06. 44 %, share of corporate loans outstanding in moratorium, 2020-Q2. Magyar Nemzeti Bank, Financial Stability Report, November 2020, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Government, on the central bank's proposal, suspended principal and interest repayments by decree for every existing loan unless the borrower opted out, which needed no application and no new administrative channel.

Preconditions

  • Emergency decree powers that let the Government change private loan contracts overnight
  • A banking supervisor that could tell banks how to book the suspended instalments
  • Banks capitalised enough to absorb nine months of deferred cash flow

Where else it has been used: Most EU members ran payment moratoria in 2020, usually opt-in and bank-led under EBA guidelines; Hungary's blanket opt-out design reached more borrowers faster and was harder to unwind.

Limits: The numbers are in a PDF: the 1.6 million household customers on PDF page 38 (Box 3), the 44 percent of corporate loans on page 39, and the 18 March 2020 start and its automatic application on page 48 (Box 5). The 1.6 million is the MNB's own calculation from bank-reported data. Because the moratorium was opt-out, participation measures inertia as well as need, and the report says the moratorium does not prevent credit risk rising. The speed figure is the date of a rule, not of a payment: a moratorium costs the budget nothing up front and shifts the cost to banks and to borrowers who keep accruing interest. The report records that the Government would extend it from January 2021 for vulnerable debtors; the record does not cover the later extensions or the losses when it ended. The MNB proposed the measure, so it is reporting on its own advice.

Hungarysince 2013delivered and closedbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Defence against the June 2013 Danube flood

During the June 2013 Danube flood, which crested at a record 891 cm in Budapest, the government declared an emergency and Hungary's national disaster management directorate ran six days of intensive defence along 807.4 km of levees; of 206,000 people the flood directly endangered, 1,570 had to be evacuated.

206,000 people, people directly endangered by the flood, 2013-06. 1,570 people, people evacuated, 2013-06. Belรผgyminisztรฉrium Orszรกgos Katasztrรณfavรฉdelmi Fล‘igazgatรณsรกg (Ministry of Interior, National Directorate General for Disaster Management), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The government declared an emergency by river section, and the national disaster management directorate, unified under the interior ministry, took over command of the defence from mayors in 81 settlements and drew soldiers, police, students, public-works employees and volunteers onto the levees.

Preconditions

  • A national levee system built and maintained over generations by the water directorates
  • A single disaster management body with legal power to take command from local authorities in an emergency
  • Upstream gauge readings that gave days of warning before the crest reached Budapest

Limits: The source is the agency that ran the defence, writing about itself six days after the crest, so it is self-reporting with no independent verification. The page gives no count of deaths, injuries or damage cost, and no recovery figure, so it evidences the preparing and defending half of the construct and not the recovering half. A low evacuation count could reflect where the river happened to break out (47,285 hectares, mostly forest and farmland, were flooded) as much as the defence. Much of the protection is a stock of levees rather than a 2013 move, and 36,780 civilian volunteers, 19,515 civil guards and 8,306 soldiers took part, so the outcome is not the directorate's alone. This is one event; it says nothing about the capacity against other hazards such as the 2010 Ajka red sludge spill. The 206,000 is a rounded figure.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Hungarysince 2006delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery

Budapest metro line 4, first section, and its cost and time overrun

Hungary's State Audit Office reported in September 2010 that the first section of Budapest metro line 4, approved by the capital in September 2004 at a cost of HUF236.5 billion with a deadline of end 2009, was forecast to cost HUF370 billion, 56.4 percent more, and to open in the second half of 2013.

370 billion forints, forecast investment cost of the first section, current prices, 2010. 236.5 billion forints, investment cost in the 2004 permit document, current prices, 2004-09. State Audit Office of Hungary (Allami Szamvevoszek), Report 1023 on the audit of the investment process of metro line 4, September 2010, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The capital set a deadline in its 2004 permit before permits and land were secured, signed works contracts in 2006 with penalty deadlines it then had to relax, and redesigned stations after an architectural competition while construction was under way.

Preconditions

  • A financing agreement between city and state that fixed the budget before design was complete
  • A permit deadline set without reference to the state of technical preparation
  • Contracts whose penalty dates were linked, so one slip moved all of them

Limits: The figures are in a PDF in Hungarian (summary findings, printed pages 12 to 13, with a chart of planned dates and costs); they are a mid-construction forecast, not the final outturn, and the line's opening in March 2014 and its final cost are not in this source. The auditor attributes part of the increase to scope added after the permit: EU-supported municipal works around stations (HUF39.5 billion), a single-vault station redesign (HUF44.8 billion) and reserves of about 14 percent, so not all of the 56.4 percent is overrun on the same scope. The report's chart puts the opening date in the 1996 feasibility study at 2005, so the delay looks larger against that baseline. The investor was the City of Budapest through its project directorate, with central government paying a large share under a 2004 agreement, so the delivery is a joint municipal and national one. Later OLAF findings on irregularities were not used.