The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Country capital readiness is the body of national evidence that lenders, investors, boards and citizens need before capital can be committed responsibly: credible debt records, published budgets, assessed public financial management, transparent contingent liabilities, and statistics that meet international standards. Where the evidence is missing or stale, capital is costlier, slower or misdirected. This page sets out the national evidence requirements, the frameworks that define them, and who produces and uses each part.
GRF · Established · service level R0
Debt transparency is the complete, timely public disclosure of a government's debt and the terms on which it was contracted. With published budgets, assessed public financial management, quantified contingent liabilities and statistics meeting international standards, it forms the national evidence lenders and citizens need; readiness is not creditworthiness or approval.
The cities where people, assets and financial activity concentrate, shown for Poland as an example geography for this subject.
National evidence requirements. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Complete records of public and publicly guaranteed debt, including collateralised and state-owned enterprise borrowing, let creditors and analysts see the full position. Hidden debt discovered late can trigger reassessment and loss of access.
Fiscal, debt and external statistics compiled to international standards, with release calendars, let every user work from the same base. Revisions and gaps raise the premium users attach to uncertainty.
PEFA, PIMA and debt management assessments describe how budgets are made, investments selected and debt managed. They signal institutional strengths and gaps that statistics alone cannot show.
Medium-term fiscal frameworks, debt strategies and investment plans connect evidence to decisions. Without them, finance arrives project by project without a national frame to judge it against.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| DeMPA | The World Bank Debt Management Performance Assessment, which evaluates debt management functions against indicators. |
| Open Budget Index | A score of the public availability of budget information, from the International Budget Partnership's Open Budget Survey. |
| Medium-term debt management strategy | A plan setting the composition of government debt over the medium term, given cost and risk. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debt reporting completeness score | score by reporting dimension | annual | World Bank Debt Reporting Heat Map | OFFICIAL |
| Open Budget Index | score (0 to 100) | biennial | Open Budget Survey | REPORTED |
| Public sector debt coverage | institutional sectors covered | quarterly | Quarterly Public Sector Debt database | OFFICIAL |
| IMF data standards subscription | level (e-GDDS, SDDS, SDDS Plus) | per change | IMF Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board | OFFICIAL |
| Debt Management Performance Assessment indicators met | count of indicators meeting the minimum requirement | per assessment | DeMPA report | OFFICIAL |
| Medium-term debt management strategy published | disclosed (yes or no) and vintage | annual | Debt office publications | DECLARED |
| Age of the most recent PEFA assessment | years since fieldwork | annual | PEFA Secretariat records | OFFICIAL |
| Contingent liabilities quantified in the fiscal risk statement | categories quantified | annual | Fiscal risk statement | DECLARED |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| World Bank Debt Reporting Heat Map | Assessment of public debt reporting by coverage, timeliness and accessibility | CC BY 4.0 |
| World Bank and IMF Quarterly Public Sector Debt database | Public sector debt by instrument, sector and maturity | CC BY 4.0 |
| IMF Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board | Data standards subscriptions, metadata and release calendars | Free, IMF copyright and usage terms |
| Open Budget Survey (International Budget Partnership) | Budget transparency, participation and oversight by country | Free, attribution |
| PEFA Secretariat assessment portal | Published PEFA reports and scores | Public where published by the government, PEFA terms |
| World Bank Debt Management Performance Assessments | Debt management practice against defined minimum requirements | Public where published by the authorities, World Bank terms |
| National debt office and treasury statistical bulletins | Debt stocks, issuance, maturity profiles and guarantees | Public records, terms per government |
Capital Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Debt management offices | Which debt records to publish, at what frequency and with what coverage | Reporting heat map dimensions, sector coverage and comparator practice |
| Finance ministries and national statistics offices | Which data standards to adopt and which institutional assessments to commission | Standards subscriptions, assessment vintages and gap maps |
| Parliaments and audit institutions | Whether borrowing and guarantees are reported and authorised as the law requires | Debt and guarantee reports against legal limits |
| Multilateral and bilateral creditors | What evidence to require before new lending and what to disclose themselves | Creditor-side reporting obligations and borrower records |
Risk assessments, exposure data, loss histories and fiscal risk analysis.
Which national institutions own and maintain the evidence.
Whether common frameworks help or impose external priorities.
How evidence improves national decisions, independent of any particular funder.
Evidence gaps are common. Many countries lack consistent hazard and exposure data, loss databases or analysis of fiscal risks, limiting their ability to prioritize investment, to compare options across sectors and to make the case for resilience to their own legislatures as well as to funders.
Institutional capacity is as important as data. Public investment management, procurement, project preparation and monitoring determine whether capital can be absorbed and used well.
External requirements multiply. Different funders ask for different evidence in different formats, imposing reporting burdens and sometimes displacing national priorities.
National ownership is decisive. Evidence prepared and maintained by national institutions, under their own governance, is more likely to be used and sustained than evidence produced for one transaction.
Readiness is a continuing condition, not a certificate. Data ages, institutions change and risks evolve, so evidence needs owners, budgets and update cycles. A country that maintains its own evidence can use it in many decisions, for any funder or none.
| Method or data | What it shows | Its limit |
|---|---|---|
| Readiness diagnostics | Gaps in evidence and capacity | Frameworks reflect their authors' priorities |
| Risk assessments | Hazard, exposure and vulnerability | Data quality varies |
| Fiscal risk analysis | Budget exposure | Depends on contingent liability data |
| Peer exchange | How countries built readiness | Context-specific |
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.