- Raw value
- 2321.86articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Sri Lanka
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 68.6. Raise Building first, at 29.9. Trust needs more evidence: confidence is 0.21.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Building | 0.57 | 29.9 |
| Learning | 0.55 | 32.6 |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 34.4 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Trust | 0.21 | 67.8 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.24 | 42.9 |
| Agency | 0.27 | 37.4 |
| Coordination | 0.28 | 81.9 |
| Experimentation | 0.41 | 12.8 |
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 Sri Lanka 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 | 0.28 | 2 of 5 | 0.96 | no trend | 54.0 | -27.9 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | 52.0 | -16.6 | |
| Trust | 0.21 | 2 of 7 | 1.00 | no trend | 46.0 | -21.8 | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.24 | 2 of 6 | 0.75 | no trend | 38.0 | -4.9 | |
| Agency | 0.27 | 2 of 5 | 0.71 | no trend | 38.0 | +0.6 | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +2.3(2) | 31.0 | -3.4 | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | 43.0 | +10.4 | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +1.6(3) | 29.0 | -0.9 | |
| Experimentation | 0.41 | 4 of 9 | 1.00 | -0.3(3) | 15.0 | +2.2 |
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?
+2.3 over 10 years, from 32.1 in 2016 to 34.4 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
- 74.575index 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), 2022
0.11 % of GDP, rank 98 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), 2022
94.5 per million people, rank 87 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
449 per million people, rank 80 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
- 31.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold near 32 with the panel. Statistics are mid-frame but research output is low, and the 2019 tax cuts and 2021 fertiliser ban led into the 2022 default without the state acting on reserve warnings.
- 30.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I hold. Moderate statistics and low research output, and the state did not act on foreign reserve warnings before the 2022 default; the 2021 fertiliser ban was an anticipation failure as well.
- 32.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Decent statistics for income, low science output, and the 2022 balance-of-payments crisis was a visible anticipation failure.
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
- 1.193per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2022. 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.
Business entry efficiency
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no datascore 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BRE.BE.P3)
- History
- no data
Note: Activation energy, measured directly: the third pillar of B-READY business entry, which replaces time to start a business (D167). The World Bank publishes a score, not days, and the score adds the registration cost and the route for a foreign firm, so a cheap but slow registration and a fast but costly one can score alike. B-READY covered 74 of 125 countries in the 2025 round, and the countries it has not reached have no value.
- Raw value
- 7count
- 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
54.6 % of population, rank 97 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
81.7 % aged 15+, rank 53 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), 2019
47 % of GDP, rank 59 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
- 37.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.30
I hold near 35. Formal firm entry is low and entry efficiency and perceived control are missing; own-account informal work that B cites is common but rests on no legal infrastructure that would let it grow.
- 44.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.25
Formal density is low, but most workers are in own-account and informal work and household enterprises are common, which registration misses. With perceived control and entry efficiency missing I come down slightly, but panelist A's 35 reads only the register.
- 38.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.30
Low density, entry efficiency and perceived control missing. Informal own-account work is an act but unmeasured.
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.
Trade compliance efficiency
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no datascore 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BRE.IT.P3)
- History
- no data
Note: Observable throughput of several agencies acting together at the border: the third pillar of B-READY international trade, which replaces border compliance time to export (D167). It is a score, not hours, and it adds imports, compliance cost and goods ordered online. The World Bank reads it from firm surveys, where Doing Business asked experts about one standard shipment. The series note also names participation in digital trade and perceived obstacles to trade; the 2023 scoring table weighed only time and cost, and the revised weights were not read. B-READY covered 74 of 125 countries in the 2025 round.
- Raw value
- 92.053percentage 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
- 0.805index 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, 1 record- 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), 2025
2.46 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.
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.
Colombo port container terminal concessions, SAGT and CICT
The Sri Lanka Ports Authority let two privately led terminal companies in which it holds equity, South Asia Gateway Terminals (development began 1999) and Colombo International Container Terminal (South Container Terminal agreement signed 2011), operate container berths in the Port of Colombo, and in 2024 they handled 2,025,840 and 3,353,067 TEUs, 5.38 million of the port's record 7,792,069 TEUs.
2,025,840 TEU, container throughput, south asia gateway terminals, 2024. 3,353,067 TEU, container throughput, colombo international container terminal, 2024. Sri Lanka Ports Authority, Annual Report 2024, container throughput of Port of Colombo by terminal, retrieved 2026-10-17.
How it worked: The Sri Lanka Ports Authority kept the land and a minority equity stake and let private terminal companies finance, build and run container berths against royalties and lease rent, then added each new terminal to the same port rather than to a rival one.
Limits: The figures sit in a 177-page PDF, which the SLPA publishes about its own port, and the 5.38 million combined figure is the sum of the two terminal totals, not a number the report prints. Throughput is about 81 percent transshipment, so it measures Colombo's role as a regional hub for shipping lines more than delivery to Sri Lankan importers and exporters. The report does not restate the concession terms; the joint structure is visible only through the SLPA's equity holdings in both companies and the royalties and lease rent it books from them. CICT's private partner is China Merchants Port, a foreign state-owned group, so a hostile reader can call it a foreign investment with a local landlord. 1999 is the year SAGT development began according to the SLPA chronology, not the first year of operations. The record says nothing about tariffs, efficiency against the SLPA's own terminals, which handled 2,413,162 TEUs, or the value Sri Lanka captured.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 53.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I raise slightly to 53. B's fertiliser ban point confirms that the centre decided without consulting agencies, but the IMF programme has since been run through institutions, and civil society is strong; the 82 indicator score rests on two items.
- 57.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Strong civil society and fair budget fidelity, and the IMF programme has run through institutions since 2023. The overnight fertiliser ban and the 2022 collapse showed a centre that decided without consulting, so I come down slightly from 60.
- 54.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Strong civil society and good budget execution, but the fertiliser ban and the default show the centre can decide without coordination. The IMF programme delivery since is some counter-evidence. I lower from 58.
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.
Dispute resolution efficiency
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no datascore 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BRE.DR.P3)
- History
- no data
Note: Confidence in contracts, measured as court throughput rather than opinion: the third pillar of B-READY dispute resolution, which replaces time to enforce a contract (D167). It is a score, not days, and it adds cost, the reliability of the process and the recognition of a decision. B-READY covered 74 of 125 countries in the 2025 round.
- Raw value
- 26.235% of firms
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- Raw value
- 3.336scale 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
- 46.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.30
I hold near 45. Court compliance is high and the judiciary has ruled against governments, but bribery is mid-high and all survey items are missing.
- 45.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.25
Courts comply with the government and bribery is mid-frame, but every survey item is missing and post-war ethnic division limits cooperation beyond the in-group. Temple and village death-donation societies carry local cooperation unseen.
- 46.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.25
Two rows only: courts comply and judiciary has ruled against governments, bribery mid-high. No survey trust, so low confidence.
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
- 0.598index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
- Raw value
- 12.688% of firms
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- 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
- 0.844ratio 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), 2023
20.7 % gross, rank 95 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), 2023
1.8 % of GDP, rank 117 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), 2018
3.9 % of secondary, rank 98 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
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.
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.
Vocational Training Authority of Sri Lanka
The Vocational Training Authority of Sri Lanka, set up under Act No 12 of 1995, took in 34,999 trainees in 2022 through 212 training centres across the island, against 37,936 in 2019, according to its annual reports tabled in Parliament.
34,999 trainees, trainees taken into full-time and part-time vocational courses, 2022. 37,936 trainees, trainees taken into vocational courses in 2019, the highest year in the 2017 to 2022 reports, 2019. Vocational Training Authority of Sri Lanka, Annual Report 2022, as tabled in the Parliament of Sri Lanka, retrieved 2026-10-17.
How it worked: Parliament created a statutory training authority, and the authority runs a fixed national network of national, district and regional centres that enrol school leavers and adults in short full-time and part-time courses certified against the national vocational qualification framework.
Limits: The figure is an intake count the authority reports about itself, read from a 42 MB PDF, and not the share of adults in education and training that the indicator defines: 34,999 is a small fraction of one percent of Sri Lanka's adult population. The authority describes its trainees as youth, mostly school leavers, so the count sits closer to initial vocational training than to learning by adults already in work. Intake is not completion: the same report counts 22,003 completions in 2022. The reports restate their own series (2020 appears as 24,705, 23,455 and 23,417 in successive reports, 2021 as 33,416 and 33,431). Intake ran well below plan: 83 percent of target in 2022, 120 courses not started because instructors could not be recruited, and 33,416 against a planned 58,585 in 2021. The fall from 37,936 in 2019 is about eight percent and follows the 2020 pandemic trough, so it reads as a shortfall on a running delivery and not as a reversal. The 2019 peak comes from a separate annual report (https://www.parliament.lk/uploads/documents/paperspresented/1683183407035072.pdf). The authority is one of several public training bodies, beside NAITA and the technical colleges, so it does not cover the national system.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 44.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I hold near 45. The free public education system is a durable institution that built high literacy, but firm training and citation impact are low, so I lower slightly.
- 43.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Panelist A's point holds: a long record of high literacy and free public education puts the base above the indicator figure. Firm training is low and citation impact below middle, so I raise only slightly.
- 42.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
HCI is above income, a policy achievement, though firm training is low and citation impact below middle. Slight lift.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-0.3 over 10 years, from 6.6 in 2016 to 6.3 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
-0.6 over 20 years, from 6.9 in 2006 to 6.3 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
+1.4 over 30 years, from 4.0 in 1996 to 5.4 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
- 253per million people
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
- Raw value
- 9176per million people
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
- Raw value
- 171per million people
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
- Raw value
- 398222per 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
- 14.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
I raise slightly to 14. B is right that the repository count is high for the frame and shows an active developer community, but IP filings are low and no institution for trials is visible.
- 17.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.30
I hold near 18. IP filings are low, but the repository count is among the stronger rows here and shows an active developer and software export community that filings do not see.
- 15.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Filings are low, repositories relatively high. A software sector exists but is not captured.
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
- 4.005% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
- Raw value
- 31.9% 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
- 0.172index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
- Raw value
- 2.96% 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
53.8 % aged 15+, rank 112 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
8.5 per 100 people, rank 80 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
9.4 % of output, rank 60 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
66.4 % of employment, rank 61 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.
Emergency cash transfer top-ups after the 2022 default
After Sri Lanka suspended external debt service on 12 April 2022, the government topped up Samurdhi and categorical cash transfers to Rs 5,000 to 7,500 per family per month from May to December 2022 for 2.5 million existing recipients and 0.8 million waitlisted recipients, raising spending on these programmes to Rs 142 billion in 2022.
3.3 million recipients, recipients of crisis top-up or additional cash transfers, may to december 2022 (2.5 million existing plus 0.8 million waitlisted), 2022-12. 142 billion Sri Lankan rupees (0.6 percent of GDP), spending on the four main social safety net programmes in 2022, 2022. International Monetary Fund, Country Report No. 23/116, Sri Lanka: Request for an Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility (staff report and Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The government used the existing Samurdhi and categorical allowance rolls, plus the waiting list of households already screened but not enrolled, to add a flat monthly top-up within weeks of the debt standstill, with multilateral emergency loans paying for it.
Limits: The recipient counts and the Rs 142 billion are the government's own statement in its Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (attached to the Letter of Intent of 6 March 2023), published by the IMF, not an IMF measurement; the 3.3 million is our sum of the 2.5 and 0.8 million, which the staff report also gives as about 3.3 million beneficiaries at end-2022. The eLibrary HTML has no page numbers. The top-ups were financed by emergency assistance from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, so the speed reflects donor money as well as the government's decision. The source gives the months, not the date of first payment, so the elapsed time from the April 2022 debt standstill to payment is known only to within a month or two. The staff report itself says the real value of cash transfers eroded in 2022, with poorer households facing higher inflation, and that Samurdhi targeting was poor (38 percent of the poorest quintile covered in 2019, 12 percent of the richest receiving transfers), so the speed of the top-up does not show that the money reached the right households. The 2023 replacement of Samurdhi by the Aswesuma scheme is a separate, slower reform and is not covered here.
Owner-driven housing reconstruction after the 2004 tsunami
Sri Lanka's government paid owner-driven cash grants through two state banks, with IDA refinancing, to 47,864 Phase I beneficiaries after the December 2004 tsunami, of whom a 100 percent audit found 44,944 eligible, and the physical completion rate for Phase I houses was 94 percent when the programme closed in September 2008.
47,864 beneficiaries, phase i homeowner-driven beneficiaries supported with ida financing, 2008-09-30. 94 %, physical completion rate for phase i houses, 2008-09-30. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Sri Lanka Tsunami Emergency Recovery Program, 30 June 2009, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The government paid fixed cash grants in tranches through two state banks to households rebuilding on their own land, with divisional secretaries certifying eligibility and IDA refinancing the banks.
Limits: Both figures are in paragraph 2.2.6 of the ICR (printed pages 6 to 7), read from the plain-text version. They cover Phase I houses outside the coastal buffer zone only, about 68 percent of the homeowner programme's Phase I, not the whole national reconstruction of more than 110,000 damaged houses, and the donor-driven programme is excluded. About 6 percent of those paid were found ineligible, section 2.4.6 reports that 93 percent of beneficiaries with unfinished houses in the north and east named insufficient funds as the obstacle, and Annex 2 reports further damage to reconstructed houses after hostilities resumed in 2006, especially in Vaharai in Batticaloa District. The completion rate is from the government's own monitoring, reported by the World Bank. The figures describe recovery from one event and not warning or evacuation.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 52.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I raise slightly to 52. The new Central Bank Act and restored price stability within two years are institutional response, which B notes too; the default itself was a failure to adapt early.
- 53.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Low unemployment and diversified exports, and recovery began within two years of the default, with a new Central Bank Act passed. The default itself was a failure to adapt early, so I come down slightly.
- 52.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Low unemployment and good diversification, but few new export products, and the crisis response was late and painful. Recovery started within two years. Indicator 69 is too high.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+1.6 over 10 years, from 16.8 in 2016 to 18.4 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
- 17.116% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
- Raw value
- 1.538% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2024. 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
- 64.348score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
- Raw value
- 0.149index
- 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
39,989 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 72 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.
Southern Expressway (Southern Transport Development Project)
Sri Lanka's Road Development Authority built the country's first access-controlled expressway, about 126 km from Kottawa to Godagama. Sections I to III opened on 26 November 2011 and section IV on 15 March 2014. The project took 13 years against a planned six. Its total cost rose from US$295.9 million at the 1999 appraisal to US$906.5 million at completion in 2014, partly because it was widened from two to four lanes.
906.5 US$ million, actual total project cost at completion, 2014. 295.9 US$ million, total project cost estimated at the 1999 appraisal (two-lane design), 1999. Asian Development Bank, Completion Report, Sri Lanka: Southern Transport Development Project (Project 26522, Loans 1711 and 2413), August 2014, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Road Development Authority ran one project management unit for an expressway financed in sections by ADB, JICA, the Nordic Development Fund and later China Exim. When prices rose and the design changed, it went back to the lenders for a supplementary loan instead of cutting the scope.
Limits: The cost growth is not a like-for-like overrun. In 2008 the scope was widened from a two-lane road to four lanes, and against the 2008 re-appraisal of $757.7 million the overrun is about 20 percent, not about 206 percent. Both ratios are our computation from the report's figures. The cost table is sourced to the borrower's own completion report (Government of Sri Lanka, 2011), and ADB, as lender, judges a project it financed. The PCR's cost-by-financier table puts China Exim at $159.48 million within the $906.47 million total, so the section it financed is included. The schedule figure (13 years against six) runs from the 1999 approval and includes four years of design and land acquisition before construction.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 29.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold near 30. Manufacturing is mid-frame and mostly garments, the export basket is simple, and Hambantota port did not produce the planned returns.
- 29.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Manufacturing is mid-frame, mostly garments, and the export basket is simple. Hambantota port was delivered but poorly used.
- 28.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Mid manufacturing, very low tech exports and fitness, and flagship projects with a mixed record.