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Documented examples

Each record describes something a country built that the indicators do not capture. The source provides the published number; the mechanism is our interpretation.

Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 863 of 863 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.

Narrow the list

4 of 863 deliveries

Coordination

1 delivery linked to Public-private collaboration.

Burundisince 2005dismantledbears on Public-private collaboration

Private-led coffee sector governance through InterCafe, and its dismantling

Burundi had run its coffee value chain through a public regulator, ARFIC, beside private-led bodies: InterCafe, whose members were producers, millers, roasters and exporters, and the growers' consortium CNAC with about 109,000 members. The government named all three as joint implementing agencies of the Coffee Sector Competitiveness Project. In January 2020 it replaced them by decree with ODECA, an office under state control. The project closed early in 2021, and 44 percent of the grant was cancelled.

44 % of grant funding, share of the ida coffee sector competitiveness grant cancelled after the government returned the coffee sector to state control, 2021. 109,000 members, individual members of cnac, the national coffee growers' consortium, one of the three private-led implementing bodies, project appraisal (c. 2016). World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR00004849, Burundi Coffee Sector Competitiveness Project (P151869), March 2022, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

Over two decades the Government of Burundi handed coffee sector governance to an independent public regulator alongside a private interprofessional association and a growers' consortium, and wrote them into a donor project as co-implementers. In January 2020 it took the value chain back by presidential decree under a new state office, without consulting the partners.

Preconditions

  • Private and cooperative operators organised enough to run washing stations, sector data and an interprofessional body
  • A state willing to share control of the main export crop, a commitment that here rested on donor conditionality more than on domestic consensus
  • Legal footing that can survive a change of government, which a decree-based arrangement did not have

Limits: The only source is the lender's own completion report, and it is written from the side that lost the argument: the World Bank calls the 2020 decision unilateral and made without advance warning. The 44 percent is the share of one donor project cancelled. It measures what the dismantling cost that project, not how much public-private delivery Burundi lost. The ICR publishes no series on the scale of the private-led arrangement, such as the private share of washing stations, InterCafe's budget or the volumes it governed. The 109,000 CNAC members is a membership count at appraisal, not a delivery figure. The liberalisation began under structural adjustment in the 1980s and was pushed by donors (IFC advised on the third phase), so how far the arrangement was Burundi's own institutional choice is contestable. The 2005 start year rests on a decree the ICR names as the one that reformed the sector. The ICR does not say in which year InterCafe itself was created. Nothing here shows whether coffee output, quality or grower prices fell after ODECA took over. The ICR reports the share of AA/A/FW+ grade coffee rising from 59 to 66 percent, 70 percent of the incremental target. No data exists for the second quality indicator, the specialty share of exports, because ARFIC was removed and ODECA provided none.

Adaptability

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

Burundisince 2023operating below its peakbears on Institutional responsiveness

Exchange rate unification of May 2023, and its erosion

After the Banque de la Rรฉpublique du Burundi opened an interbank foreign exchange market in May 2023 to start unifying the official and parallel exchange rates, the World Bank recorded a growing gap between the two rates, with the parallel market premium at 142.3 percent in September 2024, up from 51.6 percent a year earlier.

142.3 percent, foreign exchange parallel market premium, after the loss, September 2024. 51.6 percent, foreign exchange parallel market premium, after the may 2023 change, September 2023. World Bank, Macro Poverty Outlook for Burundi, October 2024, retrieved 2026-10-16.

The move, and what it needed

The central bank changed the foreign exchange rules and let one large step in the official rate run through a new interbank market, then held the official rate almost still while the parallel rate kept moving.

Preconditions

  • Reserves deep enough to let the official rate keep moving after the first step
  • A fiscal position that does not depend on central bank advances
  • Steady supply of foreign currency from exports, remittances or aid

Limits: Both premium figures sit in a two-page PDF brief (page 2), and the brief gives no method or source for the parallel rate. The scale of the May 2023 change comes from a different publisher: the Banque de la Rรฉpublique du Burundi's annual report for 2023 (page 62, https://www.brb.bi/sites/default/files/2024-12/Rapport_annuel_2023.pdf) says the franc depreciated 38.41 percent against the dollar to 2,856.11 BIF at end December 2023 after the May 2023 interbank market, and its annual report for 2024 (page 52) says the official rate then moved only 2.06 percent in 2024, to 2,914.99 BIF. The World Bank's April 2024 brief puts the premium at 75.0 percent in March 2023, before the change, so the narrowing to 51.6 percent rests on two documents and neither attributes it to the May 2023 market. A premium is a market outcome: fuel shortages from March 2024, low reserves and border closures also moved it, and the record cannot separate the central bank's choices from those conditions. The bank's own reports call unification a process, so the loss is of the narrowing that followed the first step, not of a finished reform.

Burundisince 2016delivered and closedbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Infrastructure Resilience Emergency Project, flood protection in Greater Bujumbura after the 2014 floods

After the February 2014 floods and landslides in Greater Bujumbura, Burundi's government ran the Infrastructure Resilience Emergency Project to its June 2019 close, constructing or rehabilitating 10.37 kilometres of drainage network, giving 66,151 people access to improved drainage and supporting 38,385 people with disaster-risk evaluation and early warning.

66,151 people, people with access to improved drainage in the project area, 2019-06. 10.37 km, drainage network newly constructed or rehabilitated, 2019-06. World Bank Independent Evaluation Group, Implementation Completion Report Review ICRR0022023 (P150929), retrieved 2026-10-16.

The move, and what it needed

After a flood disaster, the government routed an emergency grant through agencies already running two Bank-financed works projects, so designs and contracts moved within a month of effectiveness, and a contingency fund absorbed new flood damage without restructuring.

Preconditions

  • Implementing agencies with a working project management unit and a track record on earlier works projects
  • External grant financing, because the national budget could not fund the works
  • A maintenance budget for drainage after handover, which the review found was largely missing

Limits: The implementing agencies (the National Road Agency and the Burundian Agency for Public Works, with the civil protection directorate for disaster-risk work) are named in the project's own completion report, not in the review. The numbers sit in a 14-page PDF (pages 4 to 6) and repeat the project's own completion report, which the review says lacked a quality indicator for climate resilience, a beneficiary survey and a unit cost analysis. Both figures missed their targets (77,000 people and 12.6 kilometres). The project was financed by a USD 25 million IDA grant and covered Greater Bujumbura and the RN1 corridor, not the country. The disaster-management objective was rated modest: the national emergency response plan revision and the national early warning equipment were not delivered before closing. New floods in April 2018 damaged newly built channels, and the review names the lack of maintenance financing as the main risk to the works lasting. The drainage counts show what was built, not a measured reduction in flood losses.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Burundisince 2020delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery

Jiji and Mulembwe hydropower project

The Government of Burundi, through REGIDESO and a World Bank project unit, built the 49.5 MW Jiji (32.5 MW) and Mulembwe (17 MW) run-of-river plants with their transmission lines and substations. The project was approved in 2014 at US$270.3 million with an original closing date of December 2019. Construction began only in February 2020, after the 2015 political crisis. The World Bank put the estimated cost at US$319.1 million in November 2024. Jiji was inaugurated in June 2025 and Mulembwe in June 2026.

319.1 million USD, estimated total cost of the jiji and mulembwe hydropower project, all financiers, November 2024. 270.3 million USD, appraised total cost at board approval, April 2014. World Bank, Project Paper for Additional Financing, Burundi Jiji and Mulembwe Hydropower Project (P133610), December 2024, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

Burundi bundled two run-of-river plants, transmission and utility reform into one donor-pooled project under a World Bank-supervised implementation unit. It held the scheme together through a political crisis and two additional financings until both plants were commissioned.

Preconditions

  • Concessional co-financiers willing to top up a stalled grant rather than cancel it
  • An owner's engineer and contractors able to work in a fragile state with fuel and foreign-exchange shortages
  • A utility (REGIDESO) able to absorb and operate new generation capacity

Limits: The cost figure is the World Bank's estimate in November 2024, before either plant was commissioned. At that date it reported a financing gap of US$41.7 million still to close. The 18 percent is the Bank's own ratio in its cost table, set against the 2014 appraisal. It excludes a further estimated US$19 million lost to currency depreciation on the 2014 pledges. The schedule slip is not published as a figure. The original closing date of 31 December 2019 against inauguration in June 2025 (Jiji) and June 2026 (Mulembwe) is our reading of a 6.5-year slip. Much of it comes from the 2015 to 2020 political crisis, which delayed hiring the owner's engineer to 2017 and the contractor's mobilisation to 2020, so it is not purely an execution failure. The project was financed and supervised by IDA, the EU, the EIB and the AfDB. Delivery was shared, and the Bank reports weak contract management in the project unit. Completion rests on press releases: the Presidency's June 2025 release for Jiji, and the EIB's June 2026 release for Mulembwe. Neither release shows that the plants deliver the planned 235 GWh a year.