Each record describes something a country built that the indicators miss. The source provides the number; the mechanism is our interpretation.
Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 44 of 44 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.
Brazil's central bank specified, built and ran a mandatory instant payment rail that settled 7.98 billion transactions in July 2026, for 152 million people and 14 million firms transacting in that month.
The central bank wrote the standard, mandated participation for every institution above a size threshold, ran the settlement infrastructure itself and set the price to zero for individuals.
Preconditions
A central bank with regulatory authority over the institutions it needs to compel
Near-universal account ownership to build on
A national identity number to key accounts to
Where it travelled: The instant rail is not novel and India built one first. What Brazil added was compulsory participation and a zero price, and those are the parts most copies drop.
Limits: Transaction volume shows adoption of one payment rail. It says nothing about cost or schedule performance on a capital project, which is what this indicator asks for. Pix was specified and enforced by a single institution with regulatory power over the participants, so it is weak evidence about delivery that needs several agencies to hold position.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 2019still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Brazil consolidated federal public services behind one identity platform, reporting 175 million active accounts and 5,179 digital services in May 2026.
One identity provider for every federal service, with assurance levels tied to records the state already held, and a rule that services migrate to it rather than build their own login.
Preconditions
Existing federal databases good enough to verify identity against
Authority to force agencies off their own systems
Limits: An account count measures registration and a service count measures listing. Neither shows whether a service completes, how long it takes, or what it costs to run. Both numbers are published by the programme about itself, with no external audit attached.
🇪🇪Estoniasince 2001still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Estonia has run one data exchange layer for the whole state since 2001, and in July 2026 it carried 374.9 million queries between 1,000 connected organizations, 251 of them government bodies, across 3,785 services.
A distributed exchange layer between agency systems, with a legal once-only rule: an agency may not ask a citizen for data another agency already holds.
Preconditions
A legal mandate strong enough to bind every agency
A national identity system
Small enough administration to move together
Where it travelled: Finland, Iceland and others run the same software. The once-only law is the part that does the work and the part that is hardest to pass.
Limits: Query volume measures use of a layer that grew over 25 years. That is evidence of sustained operation and not of bringing one large project in on cost and on schedule, which is what this indicator asks for. The factsheet is published by the authority that operates the system.
🇮🇳Indiasince 2014still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Existing banks were given a national target and a stripped-down account product, and the identity system removed the documentation barrier that had excluded people.
Preconditions
A bank branch and agent network with national reach
A digital identity covering the population
Political priority high enough to hold banks to a target
Limits: An account count measures opening. Part of the stock is dormant or holds very little, and the release carries no external audit. Reaching 590 million people through banks that already existed is a different problem from delivering a physical project on a schedule.
🇺🇾Uruguaysince 2010still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Uruguay rebuilt its electricity supply between 2010 and 2017 through public tenders and long-term contracts, and in 2025 fossil fuels produced 293 GWh of the 15,855 GWh generated, so 98.2 percent came from hydro, wind, biomass and solar.
Long-term power purchase agreements at fixed prices, awarded by competitive auction, with the state utility as a single creditworthy buyer carrying the offtake risk.
Preconditions
A solvent state utility that private investors will contract with
A wind or solar resource worth bidding for
Cross-party agreement to hold the policy across governments
Where it travelled: The auction plus single-buyer design is the most transferable piece and has been used across Latin America. The decade of political continuity behind it is not a design choice.
Limits: The share is computed from the published generation series by source and is not itself a published headline figure. A generation mix is an outcome, and it hides the cost and schedule record of the projects behind it. A wet or dry year moves the hydro share by several points, so one year is not the programme.
🇺🇾Uruguaysince 2007still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Uruguay gave a connected laptop to every child in public primary school from 2007, the first country to do it nationally, and the household survey found a Ceibal computer in the homes of 35.8 percent of the population in 2018.
A dedicated agency outside the education ministry procured devices and connectivity at national scale and used schools as the distribution channel.
Preconditions
A small enough country to reach every school
Budget held outside the ministry it serves
Electricity and connectivity to the schools
Limits: Household reach peaked at 40.1 percent in 2014 and the series stops in 2018, so this number says nothing about the programme now. A device in the home measures distribution and says nothing about learning. The record is here because the delivery is documented and the measure of it is weak.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 1988still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Brazil wrote a right to health into the 1988 constitution and built a single public system that covers everybody in the country, and the WHO service coverage index for Brazil rose from 71 in 2000 to 84 in 2023.
A right to health written into the constitution, funded by earmarked federal transfers and delivered by municipalities under national rules.
Preconditions
A constitutional moment able to carry the commitment
A municipal layer capable of delivering services
Earmarked funding that survives annual budget fights
Limits: A service coverage index counts whether services reach people. It says nothing about waiting times, quality, or the difference between a capital city and the interior, and it credits private provision alongside the public system. Brazil spends less per head on public health than most countries with a comparable index, which this number cannot show.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 1973operating below its peakbears on Large project delivery
Brazil's national immunisation programme reached 99 percent DPT coverage in 2003 and held above 95 percent for a decade, then fell to 68 percent by 2021 and had recovered to 91 percent by 2024.
91 % of children, dpt immunisation coverage, children aged 12-23 months, 2024. 99 % of children, dpt immunisation coverage at its 2003 peak, 2003. World Bank, from WHO and UNICEF estimates, retrieved 2026-08-26.
The move, and what it needed
Free universal vaccination delivered through the primary care network, with national campaign days that made coverage a visible public event.
Preconditions
A primary care network with national reach
A cold chain
Public trust in the health system, which is what later eroded
Limits: This record is here because it runs both ways. A delivery capability that reached the whole country lost a third of its coverage in five years and has not fully recovered, which is evidence about durability rather than about peak performance. Coverage is administratively reported, DPT is one antigen among many, and the fall has several causes that the series cannot separate.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 2003delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery
Brazil connected the last rural households to electricity through a national programme run with the state and private distributors, taking access from 94.4 percent of the population in 2000 to 99.8 percent in 2024.
The federal government paid the connection cost and delivered through the existing distribution concessionaires, with connection targets written into their contracts.
Preconditions
Concessionaires already operating in the territory
A grid close enough to extend
Subsidy large enough that the last connections are not loss-making
Limits: Access counts a connection. It says nothing about how often the power fails, what it costs, or the isolated Amazon communities that make up most of the remaining gap. Access was already rising before 2003, so the programme accelerated a trend rather than starting one.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 2003still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Brazil built one national registry of low-income households and paid conditional transfers through it, going from 6.6 million benefits in December 2004 to a peak of 21.0 million in 2022 and 18.6 million in December 2025.
One registry of low-income households shared across every social programme, with payments made directly to a card held by the mother, conditional on school attendance and health checks.
Preconditions
A payments network reaching poor municipalities
Civil registration good enough to identify households
Municipal staff to maintain the registry
Where it travelled: The conditional transfer plus single registry has been adopted across Latin America, Africa and Asia. The registry, not the transfer, is the reusable asset.
Limits: A benefit count is administrative and says nothing about whether the transfers reduced poverty. The programme was renamed and restructured twice between 2021 and 2023, so the series covers more than one design. The capability worth copying is the registry and the targeting, and neither has a number in this record.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 1996still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Brazil has run every election on electronic voting machines since 2000, across an electorate that reached 155.9 million voters in 2024, with results published the same evening.
One election authority owns the machines, the software and the count, with public audit ceremonies and results published the same evening.
Preconditions
A single national election authority with its own budget
Enough institutional standing to be trusted with the count
Logistics able to reach every polling place
Limits: The electorate measures the scale of the operation and not the speed or the integrity of the count. The Superior Electoral Court publishes result timing and audit results separately and neither is in this number. Electronic voting has been contested politically in Brazil despite repeated public audits, which is a fact about trust rather than about delivery.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 1997still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Brazil developed deepwater extraction, found the pre-salt fields in 2006 and produced them at depths of more than 5,000 metres, with national oil production rising from 71,844 thousand cubic metres in 2000 to 219,032 in 2025.
A state oil company sustained deepwater research for decades, and licensing rules concentrated the learning from each field in one operator.
Preconditions
A state company with a real research budget
Reserves worth the exploration risk
Capital markets willing to fund very long payback
Limits: Production is an outcome shared between Petrobras and foreign operators, and several individual platforms ran years late and over budget, which is exactly the cost and schedule record this indicator asks for and which this number hides. Expanding oil output also sits against Brazil's climate commitments, and a production figure cannot weigh that.
🇲🇽Mexicosince 2003dismantledbears on Large project delivery
Mexico built public health insurance for people outside social security from 2003 and abolished it in 2020, and CONEVAL measured the share of the population without access to health services rising from 16.2 percent in 2018 to 39.1 percent in 2022.
The abolition is the mechanism recorded here: a new government replaced a funded, enrolment-based entitlement with a budget-line service that required no affiliation, and affiliation-based coverage disappeared faster than the replacement could deliver care.
Preconditions
A programme identified with the previous political coalition, which made it removable
Centralised budget authority able to redirect earmarked health funds
No statutory or constitutional floor under the entitlement
Where it travelled: The replacement, INSABI, was itself dissolved in 2023 and replaced by IMSS-Bienestar, the second replacement in four years. The case travels as a warning: an entitlement without a legal floor is one election from removal.
Limits: The metric measures the dismantling, not the programme: CONEVAL's deprivation number is self-reported affiliation, not care received, and Seguro Popular at its peak was itself criticised for shallow coverage and uneven state-level spending. The 2018-2022 change spans the pandemic, which stressed every health system, so not all of the 23-point rise is the reform. CONEVAL itself lost autonomy in a later reorganisation, so the continuity of this series is not assured.
England built a national network of early-childhood centres reaching 3,632 sites by August 2009, then closed or hollowed out a large part of it after funding was cut, with the official count at 3,123 by October 2017 and independent estimates near 1,000 closures.
3,123 centres, children's centres open, official count, 2017-10. 3,632 centres, children's centres open at the peak, 2009-08. The Sutton Trust, Stop Start report summary, retrieved 2026-08-27.
The move, and what it needed
Central government funded local one-stop centres for under-fives, ring-fenced the money, and targeted the most deprived areas first; when the ring-fence was removed in 2010, local authorities under cuts converted, merged or closed centres faster than any national decision was ever taken.
Preconditions
Local authorities able to deliver a nationally specified service
A ring-fenced grant, whose removal was also what let the network erode
Cross-departmental agreement that early childhood was infrastructure
Where it travelled: The 2025 Best Start family hubs programme is the same state rebuilding a version of what it closed, fifteen years later, which is the strongest available evidence that the erosion was a loss.
Limits: A site count is the crudest measure of the service: many surviving centres kept the building and lost the staff, which is why the Sutton Trust's estimate of real closures is roughly double the official fall shown here. The count stops in 2017 and later parliamentary answers show further decline. The record shows the erosion of delivered infrastructure under budget cuts, not the effect on children; the IFS separately measured lasting health benefits from the programme at its peak, which is what makes the erosion a loss rather than housekeeping.
🇿🇦South Africasince 1994operating below its peakbears on Large project delivery
South Africa ran one of the world's cheapest reliable grids and extended it to most of the population after 1994, then under-invested and lost the surplus, reaching 335 days of load shedding in 2023 before recovering to 83 days in 2024.
The erosion is the mechanism recorded here: a state monopoly was told to electrify without being allowed to charge for or build ahead of demand, new-build decisions were delayed for a decade, and the two giant plants finally ordered were too large for the delivery capability that remained.
Preconditions
A single vertically integrated utility, so one balance sheet carried every deferral
Tariffs held below cost for political reasons, which financed under-maintenance
Procurement institutions too weakened to deliver a mega-project on schedule
Where it travelled: The failure pattern, defer, then order two of the largest coal plants ever attempted, is a caution for any state that skips a build cycle and tries to catch up in one leap.
Limits: The day counts are read from the annual chart in the CSIR report rather than a stated table, and a day with any load shedding counts the same as a day of stage six, so the unit understates severity differences. The 2024 recovery also leans on private rooftop solar that households bought in self-defence, which the report itself notes, so the improvement is not all Eskom's. What the record shows is a delivered capability, generation adequacy, lost over roughly fifteen years of deferred maintenance and failed new build, with Medupi and Kusile late and over budget.
🇺🇸United Statessince 2000operating below its peakbears on Large project delivery
The United States eliminated endemic measles transmission by 2000 through school-entry vaccination requirements, and falling coverage brought 2,777 confirmed cases by August 2026, the most since 1991, against 285 in all of 2024.
The erosion is the mechanism recorded here: vaccination requirements are enforced at school entry by states, so a delivery that took federal purchasing and decades of practice is being undone state by state through widening exemption rules and falling trust, with no single decision anywhere.
Preconditions
Enforcement located at fifty state legislatures rather than one national rule
A generation of parents with no memory of the disease
An information environment that carries vaccine doubt faster than health agencies answer it
Where it travelled: The same coverage decline is visible across several high-income countries; the American case is the cleanest because elimination was formally certified in 2000, which fixes the baseline the erosion is measured against.
Limits: A case count is the lagging end of the erosion; the leading end is kindergarten vaccination coverage, which CDC reports separately as falling from about 95 percent before the pandemic to under 93 percent, below the outbreak-prevention threshold. The 2026 number is a year in progress and will rise. Elimination status is a WHO-defined property of transmission chains, not of case counts, and had not been formally revoked at retrieval; what the record documents is a maintained public-health achievement being lost while the infrastructure that delivered it still exists.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 1952still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Founded in 1952, Brazil's federal development bank provides long-term financing and investment across the national economy, and it disbursed R$169.7 billion in 2025.
The federal development bank converts public capital and long-term finance into patient support for firms and infrastructure projects that commercial lenders may not carry through their formation period.
Preconditions
A public balance sheet able to lend beyond ordinary commercial horizons
A pipeline of firms and projects able to turn finance into productive capacity
A mandate that can survive changes of government
Where it travelled: Development banks exist across emerging economies, but the Brazilian case shows the value and the risk of keeping one institution large enough to shape an industrial system: patient capital can build capability, while political allocation can weaken it.
Limits: Disbursement volume measures the bank's activity, not whether the projects it finances arrive on time, within budget or with durable public value. The source is the institution reporting on itself, and the number mixes market-rate lending with policy-directed finance.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 1694still operatingbears on Large project delivery
Founded in 1694, Brazil's national mint has remained a public institution through colonial, imperial and republican regimes and now produces currency, identity documents and passports after more than 330 years of operation.
A permanent public production institution carries the state's credential infrastructure across political and monetary transitions, preserving practical capability while its outputs change with the regime around it.
Preconditions
A public mandate for products whose authenticity the state must guarantee
Security and production capabilities that can be renewed across technology shifts
Administrative continuity strong enough to outlast constitutional change
Limits: Institutional survival and the ability to produce state credentials show continuity, not the cost, quality or strategic value of every product made by the mint. The institution also changed its technologies and functions over time, so continuity does not mean an unchanged organisation.