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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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3 of 742 deliveries

Coordination

1 delivery linked to Public-private collaboration.

Tanzaniasince 2007dismantledbears on Public-private collaboration

Central railway concession to the RITES-led Tanzania Railways Limited, and its collapse in 2011

Tanzania concessioned the central railway network for 25 years to Tanzania Railways Limited, 51 percent owned by a consortium led by Rail India Technical and Economic Services, which took over operations in October 2007; freight fell from 470,000 tons in 2008 to 237,000 tons in 2010, and after a dispute the RITES shares were transferred to the government in 2011, leaving the operator fully state owned four years into the term.

237,000 tons, freight carried by tanzania railways limited on the central (metre gauge) network, 2010. 470,000 tons, freight carried by tanzania railways limited in its first full year of concession operation, 2008. World Bank, Project Appraisal Document, Tanzania Intermodal and Rail Development Project (P127241), Report No. 78925-TZ, April 2014, paragraphs 14 and 16, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The government unbundled the railway into an asset-holding company and an operating company, sold 51 percent of the operator to a foreign rail consortium on a 25-year concession, and kept the track; when traffic, investment and maintenance fell short, the state bought back the private shares and ran the operator itself.

Preconditions

  • A base load of bulk freight large enough to make a concession pay, which the central line had lost before the handover
  • Contract terms that oblige and finance track maintenance, which here sat between an asset holder and an operator
  • A short bidding and handover period, so traffic does not leak to road while the deal is negotiated

Where else it has been used: The Beira railway concession in Mozambique, signed in 2004 and terminated on 7 December 2011 according to its World Bank completion report, ended the same way in the same year (see moz-beira-railway).

Limits: The figures are in a PDF, on pages 16 and 17 of the appraisal document (printed pages 4 and 5), written by the World Bank as it prepared a new loan to the now state-owned operator, so the publisher had an interest in describing the concession as a failure. The PAD gives no date in 2011 for the share transfer and calls it amicable, and it is not consistent on the year: paragraph 16 (page 17) puts the transfer in 2011 and an annex (PDF page 116) says TRL took over in 2011, but another annex paragraph (PDF page 117, Annex paragraph 28) says the concession was terminated in 2010; the concession was not formally terminated by a court or an arbitral award in this source, so what ended was private participation, not the railway. The earlier completion report for the Central Transport Corridor Project (ICR00001299, June 2010, page 9) records the concession as performing poorly and the parties discussing termination, and adds (paragraph 94) that most of the traffic had already moved to road during the two years of bidding delay, from 1.2 to 0.5 million tons a year, before the concessionaire took over: the decline therefore began under public operation. The 2008 to 2010 fall also includes the 2009 to 2010 floods in the Kilosa to Gulwe section, which the PAD says halted services between Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, so not all of it is the concessionaire's doing. 2008 is the first full year of concession operation, not a demonstrated peak. The 1.5 million tons TRC carried in 2002, which the PAD also gives, is the public railway before the concession and is not used as the peak here.

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Tanzaniasince 1993operating below its peakbears on Adult learning participation

Integrated Community-Based Adult Education (MEMKWA), and its decline

Tanzania's Ministry of Education ran Integrated Community-Based Adult Education in all 25 mainland regions from 1993. Enrolment peaked at 1,900,255 learners in 2005 and fell to 786,602 by 2014.

786,602 learners, learners enrolled in icbae learning centres, 2014. 1,900,255 learners, learners enrolled in icbae learning centres at the 2005 high of the 2000-2014 table, 2005. UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, LitBase effective practices database: Integrated Community-Based Adult Education (ICBAE), United Republic of Tanzania, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Ministry of Education ran literacy circles of up to 30 learners in primary school buildings in the evenings, staffed by facilitators and coordinated through local government. Enrolment fell by more than half within a decade as funding and facilitator support thinned.

Preconditions

  • A primary school in every village to host evening classes
  • A local government coordinator for adult education in each ward and district
  • Recurrent funding for facilitators that survives the end of a campaign, which is what eroded

Where else it has been used: Tanzania's 1970s mass literacy campaign is the earlier, larger version of the same move. The literacy gains it is credited with were also reported to slip back in the 1980s and 1990s.

Limits: The table exists only as an image on the UNESCO page, so the numbers were read off a picture and a machine cannot check them. UNESCO's page is a case-study write-up that presents the programme as good practice, and the figures are ministry figures republished without a stated source. The ministry's own 2008 CONFINTEA report prints 1,900,225 for 2004/05, but its male and female columns sum to UNESCO's 1,900,255, so the difference is a ministry arithmetic slip; the ministry's 1999/2000 and 2000/2001 rows reappear as UNESCO's 2000 and 2001, so UNESCO's year labels may be the second year of a school year. The ministry labels its table 'participation in literacy programmes', so UNESCO may have attached the ICBAE name to all adult literacy participation. The series has gaps (2002 to 2004 are missing) and ends in 2014, and later years were not checked, so the eroded status describes 2005 to 2014 only. 2014 ticked up from 734,950 in 2013, and the fall is not monotonic. A count of literacy learners is far narrower than the indicator's construct, the share of all adults in any education or training. The programme had no standardized tests, so the count says nothing about what learners gained.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Tanzaniasince 2018delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery

Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project

TANESCO contracted the 2,115 MW Julius Nyerere hydropower dam on the Rufiji in December 2018 for TZS 6.56 trillion over 42 months to June 2022. The contractor completed it on 31 March 2025, and claims settled in the contractor's favour raised the cost to TZS 7.44 trillion.

7.44 trillion TZS, adjusted cost of the julius nyerere hydropower project after usd 400 million of contractor claims, 2024/25. 6.56 trillion TZS, original epc contract price of the julius nyerere hydropower project, 2018. National Audit Office of Tanzania, Controller and Auditor General, Annual General Audit Report on Public Authorities and Other Bodies for FY 2024/25 (Ripoti Kuu ya Mwaka ya Ukaguzi ya Mashirika ya Umma kwa Mwaka wa Fedha 2024-25), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The government had TANESCO let the whole dam as one EPC contract to an Egyptian joint venture and financed it from the domestic budget rather than concessional loans. That kept the project moving and kept it in national hands, but left contract management and the transmission build with TANESCO, where the audited losses arose.

Preconditions

  • A treasury able to fund a multi-trillion-shilling project from domestic revenue over several budget years
  • A utility with the contract-management capacity to enforce delay damages and resist claims, which the Auditor General found lacking
  • Transmission lines built in step with generation

Limits: The sources are Swahili PDFs. The quotes are from extracted text with spacing artifacts removed, and the English in the claim is our translation. Neither overrun is published as a percentage. The cost overrun of about 13.4 percent (6.56 to 7.44 trillion) and the schedule overrun of about 33.5 months against a 42-month plan (roughly 80 percent) are our computations from the Auditor General's dates and figures. The cost figure counts only the USD 400 million of claims the dispute board awarded. Price adjustment, financing costs, transmission, resettlement and supervision are not shown, so the true overrun is likely larger. The Auditor General adds that the contractor was granted two ex-gratia extensions to 14 January 2024, that TZS 327.03 billion of liquidated damages had not been deducted by November 2025, and that the contractor was released from TZS 262.34 billion of community projects. At completion, three of nine turbines had not been tested because the reservoir was too low, and the full-capacity test was not done on time because TANESCO lacked transmission capacity. Completion of the civil contract therefore does not mean the plant delivers 2,115 MW. The record says nothing about the dam's environmental cost in the Selous (Nyerere) protected area.