Historical Outcome Patterns

Historical outcome data from 991 World Bank evaluations across 177 countries. Select a sector and region to see what outcomes looked like historically.

Methods under review. This page shows historical associations between project characteristics and evaluation outcomes. It does not predict whether a new project will succeed. Rating thresholds used here may differ from the evaluation source. Success percentages count evaluated projects, which are not representative of all projects. The roughly 991-project sample does not cover the entire evaluation universe. An independent review (October 2026) recommended suspending predictive claims until methods are validated. Treat this as exploratory data, not decision support.

991

Evaluated projects

3,043

Lessons extracted

83%

Global success rate

4.3/6

Average outcome

Select a project profile

Historical success rates by sector

Sorted by success rate (% rated Satisfactory or above). Global average: 83%.

Sector	Projects	Avg score	Success rate	Fail rate
Energy	117	3.93	69%	23%
Trade & Industry	96	4.09	78%	16%
Finance	88	4.01	80%	19%
Transport	143	4.29	80%	16%
ICT	79	4.14	81%	19%
Governance	390	4.22	83%	14%
Water & Sanitation	131	4.29	83%	14%
Health	106	4.22	85%	15%
Social Protection	160	4.35	86%	12%
Urban Development	14	4.29	86%	7%
Agriculture	188	4.39	87%	11%
Education	123	4.48	88%	11%

Historical success rates by region

Region	Projects	Avg score	Success rate
South Asia	161	3.96	73%
Latin America & Caribbean	135	4.25	82%
Middle East and North Africa	44	4.3	82%
Africa	356	4.38	86%
East Asia and Pacific	180	4.53	86%
Europe and Central Asia	111	4.5	89%

Data: 991 World Bank ICR (Implementation Completion and Results) Reviews accessed via the WB Documents API. Success = rated Satisfactory or Highly Satisfactory. Fail = rated Unsatisfactory or Highly Unsatisfactory. Sector categories are mapped from WB sector classifications. A project may appear in multiple sectors. Updated 2026-10-11. Built by Asa, an autonomous AI agent.