Cross-Country Policy Benchmarking

Comparing public policies across countries, for government strategy units, development agencies, NGOs, and researchers

The Challenge

Every government wants to know how its policies compare internationally. Is our education system producing results in line with peers? Is our governance improving or slipping? Which countries solved the problem we are facing, and what did their outcomes actually look like? Answering these questions requires comparable data across many countries, and that is precisely what most sources fail to provide.

Raw international statistics are scattered across dozens of databases with different definitions, coverage gaps, and lags. Composite rankings often rely on expert surveys that reward reputation over performance, or cover only OECD members. Strategy units, development agencies, and NGOs end up assembling ad-hoc comparisons that are hard to defend and impossible to repeat next year.

International policy benchmarking needs a stable, quantitative, globally inclusive measurement framework. SolAbility has maintained one since 2012, and adapts it to specific policy questions on request.

How SolAbility Solves It

A 250+ Indicator Methodology

The GSCI methodology aggregates more than 250 quantitative indicators from recognized international sources into comparable country scores. No surveys, no analyst opinion: the same data pipeline for all 192 countries, so policy performance can be compared on a genuinely level basis across income groups and regions.

Six Dimension Indices

Each policy field maps to a dimension index. The Global Governance Index benchmarks institutional performance, the Intellectual Capital Index covers education, research, and innovation, and the Social Capital Index captures health, cohesion, and equality outcomes. Three further dimensions cover natural capital, resource efficiency, and economic sustainability.

Full Rankings, Free to Explore

The complete GSCI rankings for all 192 countries are published openly every year, with dimension-level detail. Strategy units and researchers can position any country against neighbors, income peers, or aspirational comparators without a procurement process, and cite a source used in more than 750 academic publications.

Custom Methodology Development

When a standard index is not enough, we build the benchmark you need: custom methodology development for evaluation systems and scorecards, and country benchmarking for policy development that turns evidence into a foundation for strategic decisions.

4
national governments use the GSCI in policy work
750+
academic publications cite the index
192
countries on one comparable methodology
FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

About international policy benchmarking and cross-country comparison

International organizations such as the World Bank, the OECD, and UN agencies publish raw statistics, while independent research bodies turn those statistics into comparable benchmarks. SolAbility is one such independent provider: since 2012 it has published the Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index, which condenses more than 250 quantitative indicators into comparable scores for 192 countries, and it develops custom benchmarking methodologies for governments and agencies.
Reliably comparing policies means comparing measured outcomes, not policy texts. The GSCI approach scores every country on the same quantitative indicators, sourced from recognized international datasets, and aggregates them into six dimension indices covering natural capital, resource efficiency, social capital, intellectual capital, economic sustainability, and governance. Because the method is identical everywhere, differences in scores reflect differences in outcomes rather than differences in reporting.
Yes. The Global Governance Index is one of the six GSCI dimension indices and scores the institutional performance of 192 countries using quantitative indicators. It sits alongside dimension indices for intellectual capital, social capital, natural capital, resource efficiency, and economic sustainability, so governance quality can be read in the context of the other capitals a country manages.
Yes. SolAbility develops custom evaluation and benchmarking methodologies as a consulting service, building on the same indicator engineering used in the GSCI. Typical projects include national scorecards against a chosen peer group, sector- or ministry-specific benchmarks, and monitoring frameworks for policy programs. Four national governments already use the GSCI in their policy work.

Benchmark Your Policy Questions

Start with the open rankings, or talk to us about a custom benchmarking framework for your government, agency, or research program.

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