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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.

Jamaicasince 1982still operatingbears on Adult learning participation

HEART/NSTA Trust training enrolment

Jamaica's HEART/NSTA Trust, the national training agency financed by a 3 percent payroll levy, enrolled 116,918 people in its own technical and vocational, work-based and second-chance programmes in the 2022-23 financial year, including 13,918 in the High School Diploma Equivalency programme, and 129,957 when Ministry of Education and private providers are counted.

116,918 enrolments, heart total enrolment, own programmes and interventions (excludes moey cap schools and private providers), 2022-23 (financial year April 2022 to March 2023). 13,918 persons, enrolled in the high school diploma equivalency (hsde) programme at end of financial year, March 2023. HEART/NSTA Trust, Annual Report 2022-2023, performance summary, table 'HEART/NSTA enrolment by programmes/interventions' (page 39), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

A statutory trust collects a payroll levy from employers and spends it on free institutional, community and workplace training and on a second-chance secondary diploma, setting enrolment targets every year.

Preconditions

  • A payroll levy collected by the tax authority and ring-fenced for training
  • A network of training institutions and community sites across the island
  • A national qualifications framework (NVQ-J) so short courses lead to recognised certificates

Limits: The agency reports on itself in a 132-page PDF; the table is on page 39 and the HSDE figure on a later programme page. Counts are enrolments in programmes and interventions, not unique adults, and one person can enrol twice in a year. The total includes the HOPE National Service Corps and the School Leavers' Training Opportunities Programme, which serve school leavers and young people, and the agency gives no age breakdown, so the share of adults beyond initial education is unknown. The headline 129,957 also counts 11,104 enrolments in Ministry of Education CAP and other schools, a secondary-school programme, which is why the record uses the 116,918 HEART total instead. Enrolment is not completion: the same report gives 51,541 NVQ-J certificates for the year. The figure is one year against planned targets, not a series, so the record says nothing about trend. The 1982 start is the year the original HEART Act created the Trust as commonly reported; the report itself cites the HEART Act 2021 under which the merged HEART/NSTA Trust now operates.

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Firms through regulatory sandboxes.

Jamaicasince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes

Bank of Jamaica FinTech Regulatory Sandbox

The Bank of Jamaica's FinTech Regulatory Sandbox, effective from March 2020, had received 50 applications and approved 29 of them for testing by the end of 2025, including four new applications from three entities in 2025.

29 applications, sandbox applications approved for testing since march 2020, cumulative, 2025-12-31. 50 applications, sandbox applications received since march 2020, cumulative, 2025-12-31. Bank of Jamaica, Annual Report 2025, 'Fintech Regulatory Sandbox Development and CBDC (JAM-DEX)', retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The central bank opened a sandbox for deposit-takers, cambios, remittance providers, credit unions and locally incorporated fintechs partnered with a bank, admitting products to a controlled live test before authorisation.

Preconditions

  • Guidelines and an application and fit-and-proper process run by the payments oversight function
  • Licensed deposit-takers willing to partner with fintechs
  • Fintech and payment firms with wallet and card products ready to test

Limits: The central bank reports on its own sandbox. The figures are in a 33 MB PDF served at that address, on PDF page 92 (printed page 66). They count applications, not firms: one entity can file several, as the three entities filing four applications in 2025 show, and 29 is approvals since 2020, not the number testing at year end or the number that completed and launched. The report gives 46 applications at end-2024, so only four arrived in 2025, but it gives no yearly approval figures. The approvals are described as mobile wallets, debit cards and prepaid card offerings; the same section of the report covers the bank's JAM-DEX digital currency roll-out, but it does not say whether any sandbox approval relates to it. The Financial Services Commission's activity is not included.

Adaptability

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

Jamaicasince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

COVID-19 Allocation of Resources for Employees (CARE) programme

From March 2020 the Government of Jamaica built the CARE programme on its PATH cash transfer and tax registration systems, paying cash transfers to 458,295 beneficiaries (183,326 men and 274,969 women) for job and income losses and a COVID-19 PATH grant to about 266,100 PATH beneficiaries within the first year of the pandemic.

458,295 beneficiaries, beneficiaries receiving care cash transfers (sum of the published male and female counts), 2022-05. 266,100 beneficiaries, path beneficiaries receiving the care covid-19 path grant (125,700 male, 140,400 female), 2022-05. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Jamaica COVID-19 Response and Recovery Development Policy Financing (P174531), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Ministry of Finance created a family of temporary grants (SET Cash for those who lost jobs, general grants for registered self-employed workers, compassionate grants for others) and paid them by matching applications against tax registration numbers, while the Ministry of Labour and Social Security paid an extra PATH grant through the existing conditional cash transfer.

Preconditions

  • A tax registration number held by most adults, which let the government verify applicants it had no benefit record for
  • An existing conditional cash transfer (PATH) with a beneficiary roll and payment channel
  • Fiscal buffers built during the 2013 to 2019 consolidation, which paid for the response before external finance arrived

Limits: Both totals are published in the ICR's results framework (Annex 1, page 23: 458,295 and 266,100) and equal the sums of the male and female counts in Table 3 (page 18); the text on page 12 says 'more than 450,000 beneficiaries', 6.6 percent above target. The CARE measures were prior actions of a World Bank development policy loan approved in 2021, so the lender wrote the targets and rates its own operation (Moderately Satisfactory overall). The construct is speed, and the ICR gives no elapsed time from shock to first payment: it dates the measures to Cabinet decisions from March 2020 and says the PATH grant reached households 'within the first year of the pandemic', with beneficiaries determined in mid-2020. Eligibility for SET Cash covered job losses from 10 March 2020, so the rule was written to the shock, but the record cannot say whether money arrived in weeks or months. The ICR notes the government did not collect data on all indicators (for example, tourism jobs retained under BEST Cash). Beneficiary counts are not household counts and may overlap across grants.

Jamaicasince 2021still operatingbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Catastrophe bond payout after Hurricane Melissa

Jamaica's government received confirmation in November 2025 of a full US$150 million payout under the catastrophe insurance it had bought from the World Bank, backed by a catastrophe bond issued in 2024 and renewing cover first placed in 2021, after Hurricane Melissa met the bond's parametric triggers in October 2025.

150 million US dollars, catastrophe bond payout to the government of jamaica, 2025-11-07. 12,200 million US dollars, total damage and losses from hurricane melissa (pioj estimate), 2026-03-03. World Bank, press release 'Hurricane Melissa Triggers 100% Payout of $150 Million World Bank Catastrophe Bond for Jamaica', 7 November 2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The finance ministry bought parametric hurricane cover through the World Bank's bond programme, renewed it when it expired, and received a full payout within days of a storm that met the pressure and track triggers.

Preconditions

  • A finance ministry with a written disaster risk financing strategy
  • Budget to pay premiums in years without a storm
  • An intermediary able to place the risk in capital markets

Limits: The payout figure is the World Bank's announcement that the triggers were met; it does not say when the money reached the Treasury. The damage estimate is the Planning Institute of Jamaica's, reported by the Jamaica Information Service on 3 March 2026 (https://jis.gov.jm/total-loss-and-damage-from-hurricane-melissa-estimated-at-1-952-trillion/), and the payout covered about 1.2 percent of it (our division), so the record shows a pre-arranged instrument paying in full, not adequate protection. The bond is issued by the World Bank and priced by capital markets; Jamaica's institutional move is buying and renewing the cover and building the layered risk-financing strategy around it. Other layers (CCRIF, contingency funds, contingent credit) are not quantified here. The press release is the lender's own statement, which praises the government's strategy.