How good is your country at statistics?

Explore Statistical Performance Indicators from the World Bank

Author

Nicola Rennie

Published

December 2, 2025

National statistical systems face major pressure from rising expectations for high-quality, reliable data to support decisions. This pressure is heightened by the rapidly evolving demands and technologies that shape how data is produced and used. The World Bank has developed Statistical Performance Indicators (SPI) to monitor the statistical performance of countries.

What is a Statistical Performance Indicator?

The SPI are composed of more than 50 indicators which can be combined to give an overall score between 0 and 100. A score of 0 means very poor statistical performance, and a score of 100 means excellent statistical performance.

Many countries have a score above 90, representing good statistical performance. Only one country (South Sudan) had a score of below 30 in 2024.

Figure 1

Data

The indicators used to compute the overall score cover five key pillars a country’s statistical performance: data use, data services, data products, data sources, and data infrastructure.

This pillar assesses how effectively different user groups — from government branches to civil society, academia and international bodies — use national statistics, with gaps indicating where improvements or targeted support are needed.

This pillar measures the quality and openness of statistical services, including data releases, online access, advisory work and secure data access, reflecting how well the system supports users with reliable and ethical statistical services.

This pillar evaluates the production of social, economic, environmental and institutional statistics aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, providing a way to judge how well a country’s statistical outputs meet essential global and national data needs.

This pillar reviews the breadth and balance of data sources — from censuses to administrative, geospatial, private and citizen-generated data — and how well they support the creation of needed statistical indicators.

This pillar covers the foundational legislative, methodological, skills-based, partnership and financial elements that enable a coherent, capable and well-governed national statistical system.


Figure 2

Data

Statistical performance is improving

SPI data extend from 2016-2024, with some indicators going back to 2004 though not all countries have data available across all pillars for all years. On average, performance has steadily increased between 2016 and 2024 with most individual countries showing a similar pattern.

Figure 3

Data

Statistical performance across the globe

The SPI contain data for 186 countries, which covers 99 percent of the world population.

Figure 4

Data

Comparing countries in the same region

There are differences in statistical performance across different World Bank geographic regions, with some regions showing more variability than others.

Figure 5

Data

Comparing countries with similar income

The World Bank classifies countries into the following income groups based on their Gross National Income (GNI, the total income earned by a country’s residents and businesses):

  • High income: GNI per capita above US $13,935
  • Upper middle income: GNI per capita between US $4,496 and $13,935
  • Lower middle income: GNI per capita between US $1,136 and $4,495
  • Low income: those with a GNI per capita of US $1,135 or less

Statistical performance tends to be lower in countries with lower GNI, and higher in countries with a higher GNI. However, performance is rising across all income groups on average.

Figure 6

Data

Comparing countries with similar populations

On average, countries with a larger population have a slightly higher overall statistical performance score. However, this difference is very small. Although more highly populated countries may have more resources, there is increased complexity and cost in measuring very large populations.

Figure 7

Data

Overall SPI offer a structured way to assess how well a country’s statistical system is performing, allowing comparisons to be made over time and between different countries. Statistical performance is improving in made places. However significant differences exist between countries, especially between those who have high and low incomes.

Cite this work

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Rennie, Nicola. 2025. “How good is your country at statistics?” December 2, 2025. nrennie.rbind.io/statistical-performance-indicators.

BibTeX citation:

@online{rennie2025,
  author = {Rennie, Nicola},
  title = {How good is your country at statistics?},
  date = {2025-12-02},
  url = {https://nrennie.rbind.io/statistical-performance-indicators/},
  langid = {en}
}