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 mechanism7 of 742 deliveries

Coordination

1 delivery linked to Public-private collaboration.

Israelsince 2007still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

Seawater desalination under private concessions

Israel's Water Authority contracted private operators to build and run large seawater desalination plants under long-term concessions, and by 2022 the five largest held concessions for about 596 million cubic metres a year and supplied 33 percent of the country's fresh water, with the state buying 540 million cubic metres from them that year for about NIS 1.5 billion.

33 % of fresh water, share of fresh water supplied from desalination, 2022. 596.4 million cubic metres a year, production capacity in the concessions of the five largest plants, 2022. State Comptroller of Israel, Regulation and Oversight of Seawater Desalination Facilities, November 2024, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The state kept the planning, the water purchase and the regulation, and let private consortia finance, build and operate each plant on a long-term concession with a guaranteed buyer, so capacity arrived on a tender schedule without the capital sitting on the budget.

Preconditions

A single national water authority and a national carrier able to take every plant's output
A coastline next to the demand and enough grid power for reverse osmosis
Water scarcity severe and lasting enough to sustain the political case across governments

Where else it has been used: Gulf states and Australia built similar plants; where demand fell after a drought ended, as in several Australian cities, plants were mothballed and the fixed concession payments became the controversy.

Limits: The source is an audit, and most of it is criticism: it finds that the Water Authority never completed the national desalination master plan a 2010 government resolution required, that the agreed penalties for poor water quality are too low to enforce anything, that 14 seawater contamination incidents halted production between 2007 and 2023, that three of the largest plants sit near one river mouth, and that no serious preparation had begun for the Palmachim concession expiring in 2029. A third of fresh water is the 2022 national share; desalination's share of drinking water is higher, but the audit does not state it. The started year is the first year the audit reports plants in operation; the first plant opened earlier. Capacity is a contractual figure, not output.

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Israelsince 2003still operatingbears on Adult learning participation

Ministry of Labour Vocational Training Division adult courses

Israel's Vocational Training Division, in the labour ministry, trained about 61,000 people in 2022, against about 55,000 in 2019 and 59,000 in 2021, according to the Knesset Research and Information Center.

61,000 people (rounded), people trained through the vocational training division, 2022. 55,000 people (rounded), people trained through the vocational training division, pre-pandemic year, 2019. Knesset Research and Information Center, Review of poverty data in Israel and government policy (26 September 2023), citing labour ministry data, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The labour ministry's training division licenses and supervises a large market of paid vocational courses, sets curricula and state certification exams for more than 350 occupations, and funds a smaller set of courses through referrals from the employment service.

Preconditions

State certification exams that employers recognise
Private and franchised training centres that can be supervised
A referral channel from the employment service for funded places

Where else it has been used: The supervised paid-course model keeps volume up when budgets fail, as in 2020, but it also means the state-funded core is a small fraction of the headline count.

Limits: The figures are rounded and reach us through the Knesset's research centre, which republishes labour ministry data; the sentence is on PDF page 11 (printed page 9), in Hebrew. Most of the volume is not state-funded training: the Center's December 2021 paper on the training system says that in 2019, 49,192 of the participants, 88.5 percent, were in non-budgeted courses that learners pay for at private institutions the Division supervises and certifies, and 5,621 were in state-funded courses. The same paper records a fall to 36,522 participants in 2020, which the ministry attributed to the absence of a state budget and the pandemic; the 2022 figure shows recovery, so the record is not filed as a reversal. About 61,000 a year is a small share of Israel's adult population, and the count says nothing about completion or employment outcomes. The started year is not given in either source: 2003 is the year a 2006 European Training Foundation report gives for the Division's predecessor bureau moving to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour, and the bureau ran adult courses before that.

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Venture deals.

Israelsince 1993delivered and closedbears on Venture deals

Yozma, the venture capital catalyst

Israel put 100 million dollars of public money into ten hybrid venture funds from 1993, with foreign partners and a buy-out option, and by 2002 the country had 131 venture funds with around 10 billion dollars under management.

10,000,000,000 US dollars, capital under management by israeli venture funds, 2002. 100,000,000 US dollars, government capital that started yozma, 1993. OECD, Venture Capital Policies in Israel, STI working paper 2003/3, retrieved 2026-08-27.

The move, and what it needed

The state capitalised new private funds rather than picking companies, required each fund to bring a foreign venture firm as partner, and sold the government's stake cheaply to the private partners once a fund worked, so the subsidy was the upside, and it expired by design.

Preconditions

A stock of investable technology and founders already present
Foreign venture firms willing to teach the craft for cheap equity
A government able to exit a working programme instead of scaling it

Where else it has been used: Yozma is the most copied venture policy in the world, and most copies fail on the same two points: no credible foreign-partner requirement, and no willingness to sell the state's stake at the moment of success.

Limits: Attribution is the weak joint: the ten funds were one cause among several, alongside a million-person skilled immigration wave, military technology spillovers and a US stock market that wanted Israeli listings, and the OECD paper credits Yozma as catalyst rather than cause. The 10 billion figure is capital under management, not investment made or returns earned, and roughly 70 percent of it was foreign money. The programme was deliberately closed once private capital led, which is why the status is concluded.

Adaptability

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

Israelsince 2020delivered and closedbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

National COVID-19 vaccination campaign

Israel started COVID-19 vaccination in December 2020 through its four health funds and had fully vaccinated about 70 percent of adults by April 2021; at the end of April 2021, 55 percent of its population was vaccinated, when coverage in most OECD countries was between 11 percent and less than one percent.

70 % of adults (about), adult population fully vaccinated (two doses), 2021-04. 55 % of population, population vaccinated at the end of april 2021, 2021-04-30. OECD, Economic Surveys: Israel 2023, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The government bought early supply with a data-sharing agreement. It then delivered the campaign through the four health funds, which used their electronic records to call people in by risk group and their employed nurses to vaccinate, and it paid the funds premiums for reaching coverage targets.

Preconditions

Near-universal enrolment in a few health funds with complete electronic records
A primary care nursing workforce the funds could redeploy at once
A government able to sign a fast, unconventional procurement deal

Limits: The 70 percent is an approximate figure that the OECD takes from the Bank of Israel, not an OECD count. The speed was bought in part by an early Pfizer/BioNTech supply deal paid for with weekly anonymised aggregate epidemiological data, and Israel has a young population, so the case says little about what a slower procurement position would have achieved. An OECD working paper says Israel later fell into the lower half of OECD vaccine coverage, and it puts ultra-Orthodox vaccination at about half the rate of the rest of the population. The 2023 survey also records that excess mortality was around the OECD average, so fast vaccination did not by itself produce better mortality outcomes. This is response to one shock, not evidence of preparation before it. Both figures are in PDFs.

Israelsince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

Bank of Israel COVID-19 small-business credit programme

After the Monetary Committee decided on 6 April 2020 to lend banks three-year fixed-rate money for credit to small and micro businesses, the Bank of Israel had NIS 1.2 billion outstanding under the programme by 30 April 2020 and NIS 28.1 billion by 31 March 2021.

28.1 NIS billion, long-term loans to the banking system for credit to small businesses, balance outstanding, 2021-03-31. 1.2 NIS billion, same programme, balance outstanding 24 days after the decision, 2020-04-30. Bank of Israel, monthly report on programmes operated in the financial markets in view of the coronavirus crisis (press release, 7 April 2021), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Monetary Committee created a dedicated funding line for banks, conditioned on lending to small and micro businesses, within weeks of the first lockdown, and reopened and extended it with cheaper terms as the crisis continued.

Preconditions

A central bank with legal room to lend to banks against a lending purpose
A concentrated banking system that can pass a funding line to small firms quickly
Policy rates near zero, so the subsidy had to come through term and price of funding

Where else it has been used: Funding-for-lending schemes of this shape ran in the United Kingdom from 2012 and at the European Central Bank as targeted longer-term refinancing operations; Israel's version was set up and drawn within one month.

Limits: The site answers scripted requests with a Radware bot-verification page; the table was read in a normal browser at the same URL, so a reviewer needs a browser to check it. The figures are the Bank reporting on its own programme. They are balances of central-bank loans to banks, not credit that reached firms and not a count of businesses: how much of the money became new small-business lending, rather than refinancing, is not shown. The programme was not continuous: the footnote says it ran first until the end of May 2020 and was renewed in August, and the balance sits at NIS 4.6 billion from May to July. Part of the March 2021 balance comes from a second pillar of four-year loans at minus 0.1 percent decided on 22 October 2020. The cited page's last row is 31 March 2021; the status rests on a later report in the same series (7 July 2021, boi.org.il/en/communication-and-publications/press-releases/monthly-report-on-programs-the-bank-of-israel-is-operating-in-the-financial-markets-in-view-of-the-coronavirus-crisis-12/), which records a Monetary Committee decision of 5 July 2021 to end the programme on 1 October 2021 or once NIS 40 billion had been extended, and a balance of NIS 37.2 billion on 30 June 2021. The same table shows the Bank's other rapid moves (repo from 15 March, dollar-shekel swaps from 18 March, government bond purchases from 23 March 2020, NIS 8.5 billion outstanding by 31 March), which are monetary operations rather than programme changes and are not the claim. The State Comptroller's 2021 COVID-19 special report found that financial regulators prepared rapidly but that timeframes for handling loan requests were not set, which concerns the separate state-guaranteed loan funds.

Building

2 deliveries linked to Large project delivery.

Israelsince 2015still operatingbears on Large project delivery

Tel Aviv light rail Red Line

Israel's government approved the Red Line in December 2010 at an estimated NIS 10.7 billion, and NTA, the state-owned company delivering it, began the main construction works in 2015. By October 2021 the cost estimate had reached NIS 18.71 billion, about 75% above the original, and the completion date had been postponed six times, by about five years in total. The 24 km line opened in August 2023, and in December 2025 the State Comptroller put its construction cost at NIS 18.8 billion.

75 % overrun, increase in the red line cost estimate over the december 2010 government estimate of nis 10.7 billion, 2021-10. 5 years, cumulative postponement of the red line completion date across six postponements, 2021-10. State Comptroller of Israel, The Progress of the Light Rail Project in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, November 2022, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The government set the budget and target date by resolution in 2010 and handed delivery to NTA, a state-owned company. NTA revised the cost estimate at least eight times and moved the opening date six times, most of them before main construction began, and still brought the line into service in 2023.

Preconditions

A dedicated state delivery company with a signed framework agreement setting its accountability to the transport and finance ministries, which the audit found missing
Contingency budgets set by the transport projects procedure from the first estimate, rather than costs left out of early estimates
Land clearance and right of way secured before the main contracts are tendered

Limits: The 75% overrun is the audit's figure for the October 2021 estimate and includes indexation. Net of price-index linkage and a VAT cut, the audit puts the real increase at about NIS 7.46 billion, or 69.7%. The audit was finished before the line opened, so the overrun is measured on an estimate rather than a final account. The December 2025 audit's NIS 18.8 billion construction cost comes from a security audit and is not a reconciled final cost. The five-year delay counts slippage to the then target of 2022. The line actually opened in August 2023, about six years after the original 2017 date, so the figure understates the final schedule slip. Most postponements came before main construction began in 2015, so a hostile reader would call them planning slippage rather than construction delay. The project is national in its funding, its government resolution and its state-owned delivery company, but it serves one metropolitan area, and one line is a single case and not a national delivery record. The audit's per-kilometre comparisons with other cities are not used here. Ridership is not established: the 300,000 passengers a day in the 2025 audit is NTA's forecast. The audit also found the framework agreement between NTA and the finance and transport ministries still unsigned more than 20 years after the company was founded.

Israelsince 2000still operatingbears on Large project delivery

Israel Railways electrification and the Jerusalem express line, and their delays

Israel Railways began electrifying the national network in 2000 and opened the electric express line to Jerusalem in September 2018, but by May 2020 only about 64 of 480 planned route kilometres were electrified, and the forecast completion date had moved from 2019, set in 2013, to the end of 2025, on an estimated cost of ILS 12.1 billion.

2025 year, forecast completion year of the electrification project, as updated in march 2020, 2020-03. 2019 year, forecast completion year defined in 2013, 2013. State Comptroller and Ombudsman of Israel, Annual Report 71A (2020), Execution of the Railway Lines Electrification Project and Opening of the Express Line to Jerusalem, follow-up audit, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

A state-owned rail company ran a network-wide electrification programme alongside a new flagship line and opened the line first, diverting cars from other lines to do it. Completion dates were reset repeatedly while the State Comptroller ran follow-up audits.

Preconditions

One state company carrying planning, procurement and operations, so a slip in one stream delays all of them
Repeated external audit that publishes the forecast dates, which is what makes the slippage visible
An operator willing to open a line before it had its own rolling stock, by diverting cars from other lines

Limits: This is a delivery still in progress, not a finished one. At the audit date it had reached 13.3 percent of the planned route, and no official source that opened on the retrieval date gave a later figure, so whether the 2025 date held is not shown. The audit gives an estimated cost (ILS 12.1 billion) but no original budget, so the cost overrun cannot be computed from this source; the schedule slip from 2019 to 2025 is the only performance figure. The completion dates are Israel Railways' own forecasts, which the Comptroller reports. The audit also found that the Jerusalem line opened without its own rolling stock and ran with passengers in test mode for about a year, cancelling 2.6 percent of trips against 0.5 percent on other lines. A hostile reviewer would say the record shows a slipping project, not a delivered one.