About the Infrascope
The Infrascope is an informational tool and benchmarking index that assesses the capacity of countries to carry out sustainable, impact-driven and efficient public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure. The first Infrascope study was developed in 2009, and the methodology has been regularly updated and implemented across multiple regions.
The Infrascope index was designed by Economist Enterprise and the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group). The index is researched and built by Economist Enterprise and has been supported by the IDB Group, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
Economist Enterprise exercises full and final editorial control over all content, including data gathering, analysis and forecasting. The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of Economist Enterprise and do not necessarily reflect the official position of any other organization. Any comments, corrections or questions can be directed to Economist Enterprise.
Methodology
The current version of the Infrascope methodology has been in use since 2021/22. Economist Enterprise and IDB Group developed this methodology through a rigorous process of research, expert consultations and pilot program analysis. Minor adjustments were made in 2023/24 and 2025/26. To accurately assess country progress in the 2025/26 edition, revised scores have been calculated for 2023/24. The methodology reflects the latest global developments in data availability, measurement of infrastructure PPPs, and the regulatory, institutional and business environments that enable PPP implementation.
The methodology reflects the feedback and recommendations from a wide range of experts across the infrastructure ecosystem, including a panel of more than 25 advisory committee participants not only from Economist Enterprise and IDB Group but also from EBRD, MCC, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, World Association of PPP Practitioners, International Project Finance Association, Harvard and Cornell Universities, as well as other legal and technical advisory organizations and companies.
The current framework includes five categories, 19 sub-categories, 56 main indicators and 105 sub-indicators. Of the latter, there are 78 qualitative and 27 quantitative sub-indicators. Despite efforts to maintain thematic consistency with versions from 2019 and before, the results from past editions of the Infrascope are not directly comparable with those from 2021/22 onward, owing to substantial methodological revisions.
The Infrascope distinguishes between PPPs and other forms of private participation. In this study, the term PPP refers to projects that involve a long-term contract between a public sector body and a private sector entity for the design, construction (or upgrading), operation and maintenance of public infrastructure to deliver public services. The private partner typically provides finance and assumes significant construction, operation and maintenance risks. The public sector remains responsible for regulatory oversight, contract execution and supervision, and ultimately bears the risks of underperformance. Given this definition, the analysis largely excludes divestitures and management and lease contracts, focusing instead on brownfield concessions and greenfield projects. Six sectors are considered: transport, energy, solid waste management, water and sanitation, social infrastructure and digital infrastructure.
The Economist Enterprise research team gathers data from a wide range of sources to calculate the index, including legal and regulatory texts, government websites, news media reports, Economist Intelligence data services, the IJ Global project finance and infrastructure database, the World Bank Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) database, Infralatam’s infrastructure database, country data from other sources such as the World Economic Forum, and interviews and questionnaires from sector experts, consultants and government officials. Country-specific sources are listed in the methodology appendix’s bibliography.
All data are normalized to a consistent 0-to-100 scale before aggregation. Depending on the indicator, data may be normalized on a relative basis using the minimum and maximum data points observed across all countries, or data may be normalized according to a predefined scale (eg, 0=no, 50=sometimes, 100=always). For the latter, scores are assigned by Economist Impact’s research managers and a team of country analysts following a detailed scoring guide. In some cases, the data in the model may show a blank, which signifies a missing or unavailable data point. Missing data points translate to a score of 0 when normalized to a 0-100 scale. A data point labelled as “n/a” signifies that the question is not applicable to a particular country. An “n/a” typically receives a score of 0.
At the conclusion of the indicator scoring and normalization, Economist Enterprise applies a series of neutral weightings to calculate the composite or overall index score. Neutral weighting implies equality across components within each category, subcategory and indicator, and these weights do not represent a final judgment on the relative importance of any component. Calculations for the overall index result in composite scores of 0-100 for each country, where 100 represents the highest quality and performance, and 0 the lowest.
For a comprehensive overview of the methodology and indicators, please refer to the methodology appendix.
Fine-tuning the Infrascope methodology in 2025/26
As best practices, needs and information about infrastructure PPPs have continued to evolve, Economist Enterprise, with IDB, has made several minor improvements to the Infrascope’s methodology in the 2025/26 edition to ensure the index’s continuing applicability and accuracy in assessing countries’ PPP performance. The 2025/26 methodological updates encompass the following broad areas of improvement, with most updates being minor adjustments that fall into the first two categories:
- Updates to indicator terminology to strengthen the relevance/focus
- Clarifications about how scoring guidance should be applied in specific cases
- Adjustments to scoring guidance (eg, offering three options instead of yes/no)
- Moving an indicator to a different category for better thematic fit
- Adjustments to sources and methods for certain data-driven indicators to maintain current relevance
Note of caution: as a result of these updates, the scores and rankings from the 2025/26 Infrascope index should not be considered exactly comparable with the previously published 2023/24 index. Although many indicators remain unchanged, scores for individual countries may now differ as a result of scoring clarifications, methodological updates, and aggregations or normalizations.
Comparing scores over time: to ensure that index users can effectively track country progress, Economist Enterprise has undertaken efforts to “backscore” (ie, retrospectively revise) all scores and rankings from the 2023/24 edition to align with the latest methodology in 2025/26. These revised 2023/24 scores are used as the reference points for comparing year-on-year progress in the 2025/26 Infrascope index, reports and website. However, the original 2023/24 website and PDF reports (as published) have not been revised or reissued.
Summary of indicator updates in 2025/26
Note: this table describes all major updates to the methodology. However, it does not describe every minor wording clarification and is not exhaustive in describing all potential score revisions. It is possible for a country’s previous score on any indicator to be revised during the final calibration of the index to ensure consistency across countries and over time in how scores are interpreted and assigned.
| Number and name | Update | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1.1.b) Public procurement and PPP contracts (minimum standards) | Clarified the scoring guidance to emphasize this indicator's focus on the full project lifecycle. | ||
| 1.1.1.c) Public procurement and PPP contracts (consistency with national procurement and investment) | Adjusted the indicator name and expanded the scoring options to distinguish between national procurement law and public investment regulation in the analysis. | ||
| 1.1.2.b) Codification (availability) | Clarified the question to emphasize that the government must make PPP regulatory documents available, not third parties. | ||
| 1.4.1.a) Contract disputes and arbitration (recourse against government decisions) | Adjusted the indicator name, question and scoring guidance to emphasize the indicator's focus on independent recourse against unilateral decisions, not just arbitration or appeal mechanisms in general. | ||
| 1.4.2.a) Contract variations (transparent process) | Changed the indicator name for better alignment with the question. Clarified the question and scoring guidance to avoid misinterpretation. | ||
| 1.4.2.b) Contract variations (renegotiation consequences) | Switched places with 1.4.2.c. Changed the indicator name for better alignment with the question. Clarified the question to explicitly include economic-rebalancing mechanisms. Added indicative examples to the scoring guidance. | ||
| 1.4.2.c) Contract variations (grounds for termination) | Switched places with 1.4.2.b. Clarified in the definition that termination is generally considered a last resort. Clarified the question wording for readability. | ||
| 2.3.3.a) Land administration (permits and protections) | Adjusted the indicator name and removed two of the previous indicator components due to the discontinuation of previously used data sources. | ||
| 3.1.2.a) Performance-based payments | Expanded the scoring options to cover how performance-based payments are treated in public budgeting. | ||
| 3.2.2.a) Government financial support | Clarified the scoring guidance to exclude government guarantees, which are covered in 4.1.4.a. | ||
| 3.3.2.c) Financial maturity (participation of local banks in infrastructure) | Added this indicator to replace the previous "health of local banks" metric, which is no longer published. | ||
| 4.1.2.b) Contingent liabilities (risk framework) | Removed the secondary element of "delayed investment payments" from the question. Added examples of best practices to the scoring guidance. | ||
| 4.1.5.a) Financial auditing and reporting standards | Revised the question and the scoring guidance as the previously used data source is no longer published. | ||
| 4.2.1.b) Contract management (project performance data) | Adjusted the wording to clarify this indicator's focus on pre-operational monitoring, defined intervals, and standardized frameworks or processes. Added indicative examples to the indicator guidance. | ||
| 4.2.2.a) Published reports (ongoing projects) | Clarified the scoring guidance to emphasize this indicator's focus on awarded PPPs, not prospective ones. | ||
| 4.4.3) Institutional and political risk | Changed the name of the indicator group from "Regulatory risk" to reflect the relocation of an indicator into this group. | ||
| 4.4.3.c) Institutional and political risk (general political stability and effectiveness) | Moved this indicator from 1.1.4.d and adjusted its name for better thematic fit. | ||
| 5.1.1.a) Ex-post evaluations (requirement and implementation) | Changed the indicator name for better alignment with the question. Switched places with 5.1.1.b and expanded the scoring guidance to distinguish between selective evaluations, general evaluation requirements and demonstrated implementation and publication. | ||
| 5.1.1.b) Ex-post evaluations (agency and process) | Changed the indicator name for better alignment with the question. Switched places with 5.1.1.a and added an additional scoring criterion on the existence of a methodology. | ||
| 5.1.1.c) Ex-post evaluations (content) | Changed the indicator name for better alignment across the group. Adjusted the scoring note for consistency with the revisions in 5.1.1.a. | ||
| 5.2.3.a) Quality of infrastructure | Revised the question and the scoring guidance as the previously used data source is no longer published. |
Resulting changes to the 2023/24 index results
The table below shows the result of these methodological updates on the 2023/24 Infrascope scores and ranks. The left column shows the original results, as published in 2024. The right column shows the revised results, reflecting our retrospective updates to the methodology.
Nascent
Emerging
Developed
Mature
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Inter-American Development Bank Group
Sponsors of previous Infrascope editions
