Transparency
About World Scorecard
What is the mission of World Scorecard?
Our mission is to create a transparent, data-driven progress scorecard for every country in the world and make it accessible to everyone.
Until now, it has been challenging to gain a clear understanding of how a country is truly progressing. While Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is an important performance indicator and is frequently cited by both the media and politicians, it alone does not adequately reflect the overall well-being of a nation and its citizens.
We need a comprehensive country scorecard that encompasses a range of performance indicators that matter to people — such as the economy, social cohesion, health, education, governance, and environmental sustainability. It is the aggregate of these indicators, along with their trendlines, that provide meaningful insights.
With a transparent country progress scorecard accessible to over 8 billion people worldwide, we are all better informed and empowered to tackle the challenges we face in our respective countries.
Who is behind World Scorecard?
How was World Scorecard built (the technical bits)?
This website is built on top of a combination of data, tools and capabilities — much of it open source. It starts with data. All of the country data is fetched from reputable, external sources such as the World Bank, Our World In Data, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and stored in central database. The website runs on top of WordPress. The scorecard charts are generated by charts.js. In order to ensure all of the country data is updated over time, an automated process has been set up to check for, fetch and insert any new datasets into the database.
The Scorecards, Rankings and Data
Which performance indicators are used in the country scorecards?
The scorecards are currently based on 25 performance indicators covering areas such as economic development, social development, health and education, governance and security, and environmental sustainability and energy. It is important to note that some countries do not have data for one or more of these performance indicators, or does not have sufficient data available to include them in the scorecards.
- GDP per Capita (PPP)
- Unemployment Rate
- Inflation Rate
- General Government Debt
- Income Inequality (Gini Index)
- Life Expectancy
- Infant Mortality Rate
- Human Development Index (HDI)
- World Happiness Report
- Freedom in the World
- Corruption Perception Index
- Control of Corruption
- Homicide Rate
- Government Effectiveness
- Political Stability
- Rule of Law
- Voice and Accountability
- CO2 Emissions per Capita
- Air Pollution (PM2.5)
- Renewable Energy Consumption
- Suicide Mortality Rate
- Completion of Upper Secondary Education
- PISA Scores (Reading)
- PISA Scores (Math)
- PISA Scores (Science)
What are the sources of the data and are they reliable?
Currently, the data is fetched from the World Bank, Our World In Data, International Monetary Fund (IMF) OECD, World Happiness Report and Freedom House. The link to the source/external datasets used is listed above each country scorecard chart.
Is the data manipulated?
No. The numbers in the charts are the same as from the external data sources. Numbers may be rounded up or down in order to reduce the length of the number. For instance, the number $123.56789 may be set to two decimals and rounded up: $123.57.
How is the Country Progress Score calculated?
The Country Progress Score is the number of top of each country scorecard and is from 0 to 100. It represents the percentage of available performance indicators that improved in the most recent year compared to the previous year. To illustrate: if the scorecard contains a total of 10 indicators and 7 improved year-over-year, that gives a Country Progress Score of 70 (or 70%). The score will always use the last two years of data for each indicator (the last year compared to the year prior). In some cases that might be 2023 (compared to 2022), or in other cases it may be 2021 (compared to 2022), depending on data availability for that performance indicators.
Will new performance indicators be added to the country scorecards over time?
Yes, it is very likely new indicators will be added to the scorecards, as long as they provide additional insight into the overall well-being of that country and its citizens.
How do the country rankings work?
The country rankings tables show all of the countries with available data for a particular indicator, sorted by the change (improvement) year-over-year. See the example below. Guyana had the biggest positive change (37.83%) in GDP per Capita (PPP) compared to all other countries. It is important to emphasize that the rankings are based on relative improvement, not the highest or lowest absolute numbers. If you want to see which country had the highest or lowest absolute numbers, you can click on the “Most Recent Year” heading which will sort from high to low, or low to high.
If a country is missing from the ranking table it means it either has no or not sufficient data available for that indicator.
If you have any questions about World Scorecard, please contact us. We’d love to hear from you.