- Raw value
- 383.84articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Botswana
Strongest usable evidence: Coordination, at 74.4. Raise Adaptability first, at 14.7. Shared Purpose needs more evidence: confidence is 0.18.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 14.7 |
| Building | 0.55 | 22.1 |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 25.8 |
| Learning | 0.54 | 35.8 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Purpose | 0.18 | 37.1 |
| Trust | 0.33 | 69.1 |
| Experimentation | 0.40 | 10.1 |
These lists are the country's capability agenda, computed from the scores. Read the full agenda. It names comparable evidence from other countries and the 18 gaps in the registry.
Why this country is included: Added in the 9.0.0 completion, which takes every country of a million people or more that is measurable in all nine capabilities.
Read Botswana beside up to three other countries, down to the indicator behind every row.
- Usable or good evidence
- Thin evidence, hollow point. The dashes open further as confidence falls.
- The point still sits at the score, because confidence never moves it.
- Click any axis to see every country on that dimension.
A score from 0 to 100 is a position inside the frame that all the benchmark countries set: zero is the weakest on a dimension and 100 is the strongest. A score of 10 puts a country near the floor of that frame and does not mean 10 percent of a capability.
| Coordination | 0.47 | 3 of 5 | 0.97 | no trend | 61.0 | -13.4 | |
| Trust | 0.33 | 3 of 7 | 0.97 | no trend | 55.0 | -14.1 | |
| Agency | 0.49 | 3 of 5 | 0.86 | no trend | 57.0 | -8.3 | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.18 | 2 of 6 | 0.58 | no trend | 45.0 | +7.9 | |
| Learning | 0.54 | 3 of 4 | 0.78 | no trend | 30.0 | -5.8 | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +13.1(2) | 33.0 | +7.2 | |
| Building | 0.55 | 4 of 6 | 0.88 | -0.9(3) | 29.0 | +6.9 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | 18.0 | +3.3 | |
| Experimentation | 0.40 | 4 of 9 | 0.98 | +8.2(3) | 12.0 | +1.9 |
How to read this page
Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.
A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.
- direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
- capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
- downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
- perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.
Confidence
- very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
- thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
- usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
- good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.
Anticipation
How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
+13.1 over 10 years, from 12.7 in 2016 to 25.8 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
- Raw value
- 64.211index 0-100
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL)
- History
Government foresight capacity
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.
Long-horizon research commitments
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of new grants
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the share of R&D spending classed as basic research, which is the make-up of a spending stock, the construct D142 retired business R&D share for. OECD MSTI publishes that share for its members only, and UNESCO UIS no longer serves R&D by type of research (construct audit, 2026-10-02). The behaviour behind it is a funder committing to a horizon: a grant awarded for five years or more is a decision to wait for a result. Untried: no memo has triaged a grant register. National funders publish award lists one by one with their own durations, and commercial grant aggregators fail the inspectability rule. Wireable on a grant-level register with award and end dates, on one definition of a competitive public grant, for half the frame or more.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
R&D expenditureWorld Bank (GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS), 2013
0.56 % of GDP, rank 57 of 118. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: money committed to research is what a country spends, and spending it does not show the country reads the future well (D122).
Researchers in R&DWorld Bank (SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6), 2013
180 per million people, rank 81 of 114. Full-time-equivalent researchers per million people.
A condition, not scored: a standing stock of people who could investigate is what a country has, not a record of what they found (D122). Correlates with income but survives size normalization.
Secure internet serversWorld Bank (IT.NET.SECR.P6), 2024
471 per million people, rank 79 of 125. Servers using encryption in internet transactions, per million people.
A condition, not scored: a diffusion stock of digital adoption that money buys, not an act of anticipation (D122). Spans four orders of magnitude, so its rank is read on the published value and its correlations on the logged one.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 34.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold near 35. The Pula Fund and successive national development plans are institutions that planned for diamond depletion, which the indicators miss; panelist C is right that the 2023 demand slump still caught public finances unprepared, so I take one point off.
- 33.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Research and statistics are modest, but the Pula Fund and long-running development plans show long-horizon saving. The diamond demand slump was not anticipated in public finances.
- 32.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
The Pula Fund is a real long-horizon act, but it is a diamond rent decision and the demand slump was not anticipated. Statistics and research are modest.
Agency
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
- Raw value
- 13.332per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
- History
Time to start a business
direct capability measureretired, see notes- Raw value
- no datadays
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-17 (D167). Doing Business stopped in 2019 and the World Bank archived the code. Its successor, B-READY, publishes the time and cost to register a firm as a score, and business entry efficiency carries that construct. See D23.
- Raw value
- 71.445score 0-100
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BRE.BE.P3)
- History
- one year
- Raw value
- 9count
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO)
- History
Adults doing digital tasks
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- ITU / UNESCO UIS (SDG 4.4.1, ICT skills by type)
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked whether adults can perform standard digital tasks, which reads a skill level, the kind of stock D122 moved out of the scores with internet users. It now counts the act: a person who did the task. It is not the internet users condition beside it, which counts access. Candidate: ITU ICT skills by type (SDG 4.4.1) through the UNESCO UIS API, probed 2026-10-02. Sent a message with an attached file reaches 33 of the 53 countries then in the frame, 25 at 2018 or later, with no United States, India or China and most of Africa and Central America missing; two other task items reach 31 and 16. The items are self-reported and the task list has changed between rounds. Wireable on one task observed for half the frame or more at 2018 or later.
Perceived control over life
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no datamean 1-10
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- no data
Note: A perception: the publisher-weighted mean, on a 1 to 10 scale, of how much freedom of choice and control respondents feel they have over the way their life turns out, from the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. It observes the felt capacity to act, not action. The table prints the mean to one decimal and no top-box share, so the row stores the mean and ties are common. Fieldwork years differ by up to six years: the 37 countries emitted were surveyed between 2017 (eight, the US among them) and 2023 (India), and every value is stamped with the release year 2022. Response style on 10-point scales differs across cultures, and a closed autocracy can read high: Vietnam and Nicaragua sit near the top of the frame. Countries with separate EVS and WVS samples (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands) are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D127 and A15.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
57.5 % of population, rank 94 of 125. Share of the population that used the internet in the last three months.
A condition, not scored: access to the basic tool of modern agency is what people have to act with, not a record of them acting (D122). Saturates near 95%, which compresses the top of the range.
Financial account ownershipWorld Bank (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), 2024
61.4 % aged 15+, rank 77 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2025
33.2 % of GDP, rank 78 of 124. Domestic credit provided to the private sector by financial corporations.
A condition, not scored: financial depth is a stock of money available to actors, not what they do with it (D122). High values can also signal a credit bubble, so more is not always better.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 55.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold 55. Business density and entry efficiency are high, but many registrations are small citizen-owned firms built to supply state tenders, and 24 percent unemployment shows that formal openness does not reach most people.
- 57.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Density and entry efficiency are high. A's point that many registrations are citizen-owned firms supplying the state is fair, and 24 percent unemployment shows formal openness does not reach everyone, so I lower from 60.
- 57.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Business density and entry efficiency are high for an upper-middle income country. A's point that many firms are small state suppliers holds, and unemployment of 24% limits the reading.
Coordination
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Government effectiveness
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_GE.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The WGI aggregate the opinions of experts and firms, and in this set the four WGI series correlate with each other between 0.93 and 0.98 while correlating with log GDP per capita at 0.91. That is one perception of national wealth counted in three dimensions. Cross-agency delivery records are the replacement and they are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Regulatory quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RQ.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Same measurement as government effectiveness, filed under a different name, correlating with it above 0.93. See D23 and A4.
Logistics performance
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The LPI is a survey of international freight forwarders, so it records how a country looks to global logistics firms. A small country with a small port scores low whatever its state can organise, which is artefact A9. Container throughput and border time are observable and stay. See D23.
Border compliance time to export
direct capability measureretired, see notes- Raw value
- no datahours
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-17 (D167). Doing Business stopped in 2019 and the World Bank archived the code. B-READY trade efficiency carries the construct, the time and cost of border compliance, now reported by firms. See D23.
- Raw value
- 60.967score 0-100
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BRE.IT.P3)
- History
- one year
- Raw value
- 87.215percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
University-industry collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Innovation Index
- History
- no data
Note: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.
- Raw value
- 0.856index 0-1
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2x_cspart)
- History
- one year
Public-private collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Customs clearance time for exportsWorld Bank (IC.CUS.DURS.EX), 2023
3.375 days, lower is better. Average number of days to clear direct exports through customs, as reported by manufacturing firms that export directly, in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.
Days a manufacturer that exports directly says its goods took to clear customs, from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. It is the time the border took on firms' own shipments, current where the Doing Business border time this capability scores is frozen at 2019. It is not scored for two reasons. The number of firms behind each country's figure is published only in the survey microdata, and on a proxy from the published tables 37 of the 53 countries in the frame when it was checked clear 30 exporting firms; Mexico, the Philippines, Israel and nine others may not. And the question changed: surveys fielded from 2024 also ask how long release took across all border agencies, and drop an answer where customs alone took longer, so a country surveyed on both sides of the change can move severalfold with nothing at its border changing. India reads 17.3 days in 2022 and 2.5 in 2025, on more than 9,000 firms each time. No country in the frame has two surveys on the new questionnaire yet. Income is not why it is left out: it barely tracks log GDP per capita.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 61.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold near 60. Debswana is a durable state-firm coordination institution and the 2024 peaceful transfer of power shows institutional maturity; panelist C is right that diamond rents buy part of this, which keeps me below 65.
- 62.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Civil society, budget execution and trade compliance are good, Debswana is a durable coordination arrangement and the kgotla is a real local mechanism. Diamond rents buy part of this.
- 58.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Debswana, Kgotla consultation and the 2024 peaceful transfer are durable arrangements. Diamond rents fund much of the delivery, so some of it is bought.
Trust
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Rule of law
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RL.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite correlating with control of corruption above 0.95 and with log GDP per capita at 0.83. Court throughput and case clearance rates are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Control of corruption
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_CC.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite. It measures reputation for corruption, which is not the same thing as corruption, and it tracks income closely. Prosecution and audit records are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Time to enforce a contract
direct capability measureretired, see notes- Raw value
- no datadays
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-17 (D167). Doing Business stopped in 2019 and the World Bank archived the code. B-READY dispute resolution efficiency carries the construct, the time and cost to resolve a commercial dispute and enforce the decision. See D23.
- Raw value
- 46.535score 0-100
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BRE.DR.P3)
- History
- one year
- Raw value
- 6.138% of firms
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- Raw value
- 3.22scale 0-4 (never to always)
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp)
- History
- one year
Intentional homicide rate
downstream outcomeretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataper 100,000 people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)
- History
- no data
Note: Added 2026-08-26 by D23 as the observable replacement for two retired WGI perception composites, and retired 2026-08-27 by D44 when the diagnostic built in D42 measured what it was doing. It raised this dimension's correlation with log GDP per capita by 0.288, from 0.096 to 0.385, the largest single wealth contribution anywhere in the model. It was added to fix wealth contamination and it was the wealth contamination. The dataset is sound and the objection is to what it measures here: homicide is driven heavily by organised crime, a society can be physically safe while trusting very little, and across this country set the variation it carries is mostly income. Behavioural trust measures remain a gap.
Generalised interpersonal trust
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% agreeing
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- no data
Note: Share answering that most people can be trusted in the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. The adapter uses the publisher-weighted country results, emits only countries with one survey row, and holds countries with separate EVS and WVS samples until the respondent-level weights can be pooled reproducibly. See D57 and D64.
Trust in public institutions
perception proxyno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% expressing confidence
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD Trust Survey / WVS
- History
- no data
Note: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability. The Joint EVS/WVS confidence battery (E069) reaches 37 countries from one release, and confidence in the courts (E069_17) is published beside Trust as a check under this id rather than scored: every item of the battery tested (courts, civil service, police, parliament and government) reads higher in the closed and electoral autocracies of the frame than in its democracies, which is deference as much as confidence (A13). The gap stays open for a measure that does not reward a court that cannot rule against the state. See D132.
Cooperation beyond the in-group
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% expressing trust
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- no data
Note: The distinction that makes this dimension worth measuring: whether trust reaches a person with no tie to the respondent. Generalised trust asks about "most people", which a respondent can fill with their own circle; this item names the stranger. China is the clearest case, high on most people and low on a person met for the first time. The value is the publisher-weighted share answering trust completely plus the share answering trust somewhat, the one sum of two printed columns the adapter stores, exact to about 0.1, over all respondents including don't know and no answer. EVS and WVS ask the same question on the same four-point scale; where one country has both samples, the WVS share is a median 2.2 points higher. Trust in people of another nationality (G007_36_B), which the row once also named, is left out because it reads attitudes to foreigners as much as trust. Fieldwork runs from 2017 to 2023 and every value carries the release year 2022. Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D140.
Court case clearance rate
downstream outcomeno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of incoming cases
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- CEPEJ / OECD / national court statistics
- History
- no data
Note: Whether a court finishes what it starts, counted from case records rather than asked in a survey. D23 named it as the observable replacement for the two retired WGI composites and it has stayed unfilled since. CEPEJ publishes it for Council of Europe members and OECD for its own members, so no single publisher reaches this country set, and a harmonised series needs the project second source adapter. See D57.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 55.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I hold 55. Courts the government obeys, low bribery and the long-standing DCEC are the legal infrastructure I weight, but dispute resolution is weak and there are no survey trust data.
- 56.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.30
Low bribery and high court compliance support a good reading, but survey trust is missing and dispute resolution is weak. I sit below the indicator for thin coverage.
- 54.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Low bribery and high court compliance are strong for the region, but survey trust is missing and dispute resolution is weak. The indicator of 69 rests on thin coverage.
Learning
How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
- Raw value
- 0.414index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
- Raw value
- 34.598% of firms
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Eurostat / OECD PIAAC
- History
- no data
Note: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.
- Raw value
- 1.093ratio to world average
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2024
21.4 % gross, rank 92 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2020
8.1 % of GDP, rank 3 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2007
5.7 % of secondary, rank 89 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
The value is from 2007, more than 15 years old.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 30.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold 30. Panelist C is right that a low HCI after decades of education spending is a conversion failure, and HIV mortality accounts for only part of it.
- 32.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
HCI is low despite high education spending, partly from HIV mortality, and citation impact is mid-frame on a small base. I lower slightly toward the panel.
- 28.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
HCI is low despite decades of schooling spending, which is a conversion failure. Citation impact is mid from a small base.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
+8.2 over 10 years, from 2.5 in 2016 to 10.7 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
- Raw value
- 10per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
- Raw value
- 3506per million people
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
- Raw value
- 16per million people
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
- Raw value
- 12825per million people
- Year
- 2026. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv)
- History
- no data
Venture deals
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD / national VC associations
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The id keeps its first name so evidence records, links and published files still resolve. The row asked for venture capital deployed as a share of GDP, a level of financial depth of the kind private credit is (D122). A count of first rounds counts attempts started with outside risk money, which is what this capability asks about, and a large round counts once. Candidates, none wireable: the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard carried venture capital for 6 of the 16 countries the frame held on 2026-08-26, as amounts in national currency, latest year 2022, with Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore absent (D21); national venture capital associations publish counts on their own definitions; commercial deal databases cover the world and are not inspectable (D10). Wireable on an inspectable deal count with one definition of a first round for half the frame or more. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.
Early-stage entrepreneurial activity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no data% aged 18-64
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- no data
Note: From the GEM Adult Population Survey, entered by hand because GEM has no open API. TEA counts every new business, so necessity self-employment scores the same as a funded startup, which is why Chile and Argentina sit above the United States here. Read it as how many people are trying, not as how much value the attempts create. GEM does not run every economy every year: Singapore last took part in 2014 and the recency term marks that value down hard.
Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% not deterred
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
- History
- no data
Note: Stored as 100 minus the published GEM fear of failure rate, so the direction matches the rest of the registry. GEM measures that rate among adults who already see good opportunities, not among all adults, so the denominator differs from the label. Attitudinal: bankruptcy law and time to discharge would be the observable substitute and are still worth wiring beside it.
Firms through regulatory sandboxes
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no datafirms per million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national regulators
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.
University spinouts
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national TTO associations
- History
- no data
Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.
Business share of R&D
capability inputretired, see notes- Raw value
- no data% of R&D
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD MSTI / RICYT
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 12.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold 12. Patents and designs are near zero and software output is low; no institution channels trial and error outside the diamond sector.
- 13.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Patents and designs are near zero, trademarks moderate and repositories few. The economy is dominated by diamonds and the state.
- 10.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Patents and designs are near zero and trademarks mid, with no entrepreneurship data. No channel for trial and error outside diamonds.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
- Raw value
- 24.477% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
- Raw value
- 57.6% of unemployed
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- one year
- Raw value
- 0.801index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
- Raw value
- 0.81% of products not exported competitively at the start
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ))
- History
- one year
Disaster preparedness and recovery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- INFORM / UNDRR
- History
- no data
Note: No source observes a country preparing for or recovering from a real shock. INFORM publishes its lack of coping capacity apart from hazard and exposure, but that dimension averages government self-assessments and governance perception indices with stocks such as roads, phones and physicians, which is the perception layer D23 retired plus conditions money buys (D122). Sendai and WHO reporting are governments grading themselves. A warning-reach survey item is a check candidate. See the disaster preparedness memo.
Institutional responsiveness
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Labour force participationWorld Bank (SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS), 2025
71.2 % aged 15+, rank 55 of 125. Share of the working-age population in the labour force.
A condition, not scored: how much of the population is in the labor force at all is what a country has to reallocate, a level set by norms, schooling and age, not a record of it reallocating (D141). Participation norms confound it, especially for India. Adaptability reads reallocation through long-term unemployment and export diversification instead.
Fixed broadband subscriptionsWorld Bank (IT.NET.BBND.P2), 2024
7.4 per 100 people, rank 83 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2024
23.2 % of output, rank 110 of 117. Power lost in transmission and distribution, including unbilled use.
A condition, not scored: the state of the grid, and whether its operator can bill what it delivers, is infrastructure a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D141). Read it beside broadband, the other installed network beside Adaptability.
Informal employmentILOSTAT (DF_SDG_0831_SEX_ECO_RT), 2024
75.6 % of employment, rank 68 of 102. Informal employment as a share of total employment, SDG indicator 8.3.1.
A condition, not scored: how much work carries no contract, registration or social protection describes the labor market a country reallocates through, not it reallocating (D150). Read it beside the unemployment rate: where most work is informal, a person who loses a job takes any work within weeks, so a low rate is not a fluid market. Its direction for Adaptability cannot be defended, since informal work is both the slack that absorbs a shock and the precarity that keeps a worker from moving up, so the rank orders values and is not a verdict. Comparability is weak: the European values come from an income survey (EU-SILC) with a proxy definition, and the rest from labor force or household surveys processed by the ILO. ILOSTAT has no value for the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, China, the Philippines or Cuba, and some values are old (Haiti and Nicaragua 2012).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Botswana's health authorities reported to WHO that 1,951,054 people, 83 per 100 population, had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose by 31 December 2023, from a first dose given on 26 March 2021, with 1,663,490 (71 per 100) completing the primary series.
1,951,054 people, people vaccinated with at least one covid-19 vaccine dose, 2023-12-31. 71 per 100 population, people who completed the primary series (last dose), 2023-12-31. World Health Organization, COVID-19 dashboard vaccination data (vaccination-data.csv), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: Botswana's health ministry ran a national COVID-19 campaign through its clinics and mass vaccination sites and reached over four in five residents with a first dose.
Limits: The figures are Botswana's own reports to WHO (DATA_SOURCE 'REPORTING'), with no independent coverage survey behind them, read from one row of a CSV with no prose. First-dose reach was 83 per 100 and completion 71 per 100, among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, which partly reflects a small population and a strong primary health system rather than a crisis-specific capability. Booster or additional doses reached 510,809 people, 22 per 100. The VACCINES_USED field is empty, so the record cannot show which products were used or where the doses came from, and it evidences distribution only. The per-100 rates divide by WHO's population estimate. Vaccination is a response to one shock, not proof of preparedness for cyclones, floods or droughts, and the brief for this column prefers a hazard-specific delivery; this is filed because none with an official figure was found in the time available. The cited URL is the blob the WHO dashboard serves, as in bol-covid-vaccination.
COVID-19 wage subsidy from the Pandemic Relief Fund
Botswana's government seeded a COVID-19 Pandemic Relief Fund with P2 billion in 2020 and paid from it a wage subsidy of 50 percent of basic salary for employees of affected businesses, administered by the Botswana Unified Revenue Service, spending P807.3 million on the subsidy for April to June 2020.
807.28 million BWP, wage subsidy spending from the covid-19 pandemic relief fund, april to june 2020, 2020-04 to 2020-06. 165,000 workers, workers covered by the first round of subsidy payments, as stated by burs on 1 may 2020 (over), 2020-05-01. Botswana Press Agency (BOPA), Daily News of the Government of Botswana, 'Covid-19 fund donations P125m', 27 August 2020, reporting the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development permanent secretary before the Public Accounts Committee, retrieved 2026-10-16.
How it worked: The Finance Ministry created a dedicated relief fund by order, seeded it from the budget, and handed the wage subsidy to the revenue authority, which paid employers against its own taxpayer register and rejected firms that had retrenched staff.
Limits: Both numbers are government officials describing their own programme, reported by the state news agency; there is no audit or BURS outturn table behind them. The P807,277,570.45 is the permanent secretary's figure to the Public Accounts Committee, described as the budget 'used for wage subsidy from April to June'; the minister told Parliament on 3 September 2020 that 'more than P800 million' had gone to the subsidy (dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/58271). The 165,000 workers and the more than 12,000 businesses paid P172 million, 74 percent of the funds requested, come from a separate Daily News item of 2 May 2020 (dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/55951) quoting the acting BURS commissioner general, who also reported pending claims from bad banking details, employees appearing in more than one company, and possible fraud. Neither page gives a final count of workers or the date the scheme was decided, so speed is shown only by payments within about a month. The subsidy was capped at P1,000 to P2,500 per worker per month, and BURS said on 8 May 2020 that the government could not dictate how much employers paid their employees (dailynews.gov.bw/news-detail/56050), so the record does not show how much reached workers. The fund was mostly the government's own P2 billion seed money, drawn when mineral revenue collapsed and the deficit widened.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 18.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
I hold near 20. The panel agrees: 24 percent unemployment and extreme diamond concentration after decades of diversification plans show the system has not reallocated.
- 19.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Diamond dependence, 24 percent unemployment and few new export products confirm weak adaptation after decades of diversification plans.
- 15.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Unemployment of 24%, diamond concentration among the worst and few new export products. Diversification plans have not worked in decades.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
-0.9 over 10 years, from 5.6 in 2016 to 4.7 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
- Raw value
- 5.691% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
- Raw value
- 0.539% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
- History
Logistics infrastructure quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.INFR.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. An LPI sub-index, so the same freight-forwarder survey as logistics performance and the same problem. Electricity connection speed stays as the observable infrastructure measure in this dimension. See D23.
- Raw value
- 74.348score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
- Raw value
- 0.008index
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD)
- History
Large project delivery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% overrun
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: The single best measure of execution capability and there is no comparable international dataset. Assembling one is a defensible Envisioning project. Building mixes industrial output with state delivery capacity, and this indicator carries the delivery side: the other six indicators cannot see a national programme that was delivered. Documented deliveries are recorded in data/evidence and never scored, see D20.
Firm scale-up rate
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD DynEmp
- History
- no data
Note: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Output per workerWorld Bank (SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD), 2025
50,029 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 59 of 123. GDP per person employed, constant purchasing power parity.
A condition, not scored: output per worker is income per worker, the wealth the benchmark tests capability against, so it is published beside Building as context (D122).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Morupule B coal power station, and its underperformance
Botswana Power Corporation built the 600 MW Morupule B coal power station under an EPC contract appraised in 2009, taking the plant over with known defects on 4 May 2014 against a target of 31 December 2013, after which it ran at a capacity factor of 52 percent from April 2015 to January 2016 against the 80 percent projected at appraisal.
52 percent, plant gross capacity factor, measured (table 2), 2015-04 to 2016-01. 80 percent, capacity factor projected at appraisal, 2009. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Botswana Morupule B Generation and Transmission Project (P112516; P116784), Report No. ICR3301, revised January 2017, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The state utility bought a large coal plant on a turnkey contract from a lowest-cost bidder, accepted it with a punch list of defects to meet a power shortfall, and then imported power and ran diesel units while the defects were chased.
Limits: The World Bank's completion report rated outcome, Bank and borrower performance all Unsatisfactory. The 52 percent is the measured gross capacity factor for the whole plant in Table 2 for April 2015 to January 2016 (54 percent for April 2014 to March 2015); Table 1 gives about 38 percent from grid connection to March 2014, and paras. 91 and 96 describe availability 'hovering around 50 percent'. On cost the project did not overrun: the power-station, transmission and water component came to US$1,188.6 million against an appraisal estimate of US$1,539.6 million (Annex 1), so the failure is in schedule and performance, not budget. The report attributes the defects mainly to the Chinese EPC contractor's design and construction quality, with some operation and maintenance issues, and records three site fatalities; the plant was financed largely by an ICBC loan with a World Bank guarantee. The report does not cover the plant after 2016, so whether it later reached its design output is not shown. 'Operating' is used because the plant generates; the record documents a delivery that never reached its design performance rather than one that eroded from a peak.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 29.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold near 30. The state built roads, schools and clinics reliably, but the Morupule B power plant defects show weak delivery on large technical projects, and manufacturing and fitness are at the floor.
- 29.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Manufacturing small and fitness at the floor, but roads, schools and clinics were delivered reliably. Morupule B defects show weak delivery on large projects.
- 29.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Roads, schools and clinics were delivered, but manufacturing, high-tech exports and fitness are at the floor, and Morupule B had long defects.