Countries by Statistical performance indicators (SPI): Pillar 5 data infrastructure score (scale 0-100)
Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, and Turkiye each score a perfect 100 out of 100 on the World Bank's SPI Pillar 5 data infrastructure index for 2024, placing them at rank 1 among 191 countries. At the other end, Eritrea scores just 10, the lowest of any country measured. The 90-point gap between the top and bottom reflects the wide variation in countries' legislative frameworks, institutional governance, and statistical standards.
Ranking 2024
Analysis
The SPI Pillar 5 data infrastructure score measures the hard and soft infrastructure underpinning a country's statistical system on a scale of 0 to 100, where higher scores indicate stronger capacity. According to the World Bank source note, the data infrastructure pillar overall score measures the hard and soft infrastructure segments, itemizing essential cross cutting requirements for an effective statistical system. The segments are: (i) legislation and governance covering the existence of laws and a functioning institutional framework for the statistical system; (ii) standards and methods addressing compliance with recognized frameworks. The indicator code is IQ.SPI.PIL5, drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators for the data year 2024. Coverage is comprehensive: all 191 countries in this ranking have data from the last 7 years, and 100% of data points are classified as official, exceeding the 70% quality threshold. No extreme outliers were identified using a 3-standard-deviation test.
The top of the ranking is dominated by a geographically diverse set of countries. Five nations share rank 1 with a score of 100: Australia, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation, and Turkiye. Seven countries follow at rank 6 with a score of 95, including Chile, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and North Macedonia alongside Albania and Costa Rica. A further eleven countries hold rank 13 with scores of 90, including Canada, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Uzbekistan. The top tier spans every major world region, indicating that high scores at this level are not confined to high-income or Western countries.
The middle of the ranking, covering scores between 55 and 75, contains a wide range of countries across income levels. The United States sits at rank 50 with a score of 80, alongside Brazil, Singapore, and Kenya. China scores only 55, placing it at rank 116 alongside nations such as Haiti, Ghana, and Nicaragua. India scores 50 at rank 137, grouped with countries including Mali, Chad, and Guinea-Bissau. At the bottom, Eritrea scores 10 at rank 191, the only country below 15. Nauru, Turkmenistan, and Tuvalu each score 15 at rank 188. Venezuela scores 25 at rank 184. The presence of large economies such as China and India in the lower-middle range of the ranking is a notable feature of this dataset.
This metric has several important limitations. Scores are recorded in discrete increments of 5 points, which means many countries share the same rank and fine distinctions between countries at the same score level cannot be drawn from this data alone. The composite nature of the pillar score, combining legislation, governance, and standards compliance, means a high overall score does not identify which specific sub-components are strong or weak. Countries in conflict or with severely limited administrative capacity may have scores that reflect reporting constraints rather than actual infrastructure conditions. The average year-over-year change of 12.1% suggests scores can shift meaningfully between assessment periods, so rankings should be interpreted in the context of the 2024 data year specifically.
Methodology
The metric is the Statistical Performance Indicators (SPI) Pillar 5 data infrastructure score, indicator code IQ.SPI.PIL5, sourced from the World Bank World Development Indicators for the data year 2024. Scores are expressed as absolute values on a scale of 0 to 100. Per the source definition, the data infrastructure pillar overall score measures the hard and soft infrastructure segments, itemizing essential cross cutting requirements for an effective statistical system. The segments are: (i) legislation and governance covering the existence of laws and a functioning institutional framework for the statistical system; (ii) standards and methods addressing compliance with recognized frameworks. The ranking covers 191 countries, all of which have data from within the last 7 years, meeting the recency threshold. All 191 countries report data for the latest year (2024), giving 100% consistency. Data quality is 100% official, well above the 70% threshold. No extreme outliers were detected at the 3-standard-deviation level. Scores range from 10 to 100, a spread of 900%, and are recorded in 5-point increments, which limits within-tier differentiation. Average year-over-year change is 12.1%, below the 50% volatility threshold, indicating reasonable stability across assessment periods.