Know what the comparison is helping you do.
Imagine you share a score with a colleague. They ask, “What went into it?” A useful method lets you answer in plain language. You should be able to name the inputs, dates, weights, comparison group, and treatment of missing values.
Country Readiness compares four national conditions. Sister City opportunity research helps prioritize possible relationships. Partnership performance asks what established partners actually do and achieve over time. These products answer related questions and keep separate calculations.
Use the research library for a guide to each component and source. The details below let you inspect the formula and source boundaries. Current API lookups are available in connected data; fixed ranking editions keep their original inputs so you can reproduce them.
Try this: Choose the product that matches your question, then read its inputs and limits before interpreting the rank.
My Diplomacy Notebook
Keep your goal, research, sources, and next step together. Open this notebook from any page and continue where you left off.
Add sources, contacts, and a date
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Copy, download, and print include your goal, all saved notes, and saved research with its source details. For a PDF, choose “Save as PDF” in the print window.
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Open the research library: components, pillars, and sources
The core question
Which places are best positioned to translate global connections into measurable economic growth? The Commercial Diplomacy Index examines trade readiness, investment attraction, organized relationship capacity, visitor markets, business access, and global storytelling.
Why Commercial Diplomacy Takes Time—and Why We Track the Relationships explains why we preserve introductions, engagement, and later results on their own timelines, with quotations from Shannon Sprenger’s October 29, 2026 Global Ties U.S. discussion.
What this release includes
This release includes published Country Readiness V1 scores for 121 reporting economies, evidence-based country profiles, the wider six-pillar framework, a schematic market exploration map, a self-reported chamber readiness inventory, and trade mission planning worksheets. A separate Sister City research explorer now connects a complete, source-certified set of 69 country-to-U.S.-market leads. The broader six-pillar place scores remain in development.
The profile directory stays alphabetical. Published ranks appear with their scores; countries with limited scoring coverage remain visible. City, state, and regional profiles organize research without receiving a country score. Mission themes describe research interests supplied for this project; they are not verified market opportunities.
A separate 2024 economic opportunity component now compares 150 economies using import demand, real GDP growth, and price stability. Its later GEM trends remain dated context beside the score.
Three clear questions.
One dated comparison.
This component helps you choose where to research an export market. All four source observations must be available for 2024. 150 of 217 WDI reporting economies qualify. Other countries and territories keep their profiles and available facts.
Import demand
How much does this market buy from abroad? Add the reported value of goods imports and commercial service imports. Larger totals receive higher comparison percentiles.
View the source definition ↗Economic growth
Is the wider economy growing? Use the reported annual change in real GDP. Faster growth receives a higher comparison percentile.
View the source definition ↗Price stability
How much are consumer prices changing? Use the size of the annual CPI change, whether positive or negative. Smaller absolute changes receive higher comparison percentiles.
View the source definition ↗For each component: percentile = 100 × [number below + (number tied − 1) / 2] ÷ (N − 1). Every component uses the same 150 complete economies. For price stability, rank −|inflation|. Round the exact weighted result half up to two decimals. Higher published scores rank first; equal scores share a rank.
Why these weights, and what should I check next?
Import demand gets half the weight because the first question is where goods and services are being bought from abroad. Growth and price stability each get a quarter to add momentum and operating context. These are transparent NDS editorial choices, not estimated causal or predictive weights.
Market size is a starting point. Large import totals can include re-exports and do not show which buyers need your product. Commercial services omit government services not included elsewhere, so this sum is not the full balance-of-payments import total. Growth can reflect a rebound after a weak year.
Price stability is a simple rule. Distance from zero treats inflation and deflation symmetrically. It is not a universal inflation target, a measure of the cost of living, or a forecast of currency movements.
Find a route to market. Check industry demand, tariffs, product rules, costs, and qualified partners. Pair these facts with diplomacy networks, city relationships, and community evidence. Those connections provide a route for follow-up; they do not receive an invented score uplift.
This is an NDS calculation from World Bank inputs, not a World Bank ranking. Calculation checks verify the release; it has not been independently certified. The wider six-pillar Commercial Diplomacy Index and partnership performance measures have separate purposes.
Source dates, coverage, and updates
Prepared from the supplied files on October 23, 2026. The files do not state a common download date. This is not a live API refresh. All scoring inputs come from that one bulk release, without filling gaps from a different year or API vintage. The existing Country Readiness V1 uses its own dated API snapshot and remains a separate score.
WDI country records with a nonblank region define the eligible reporting-economy set. Aggregate groups and “Not classified” are excluded. There is no population cutoff or selected-country list. No carry-forward, missing-as-zero rule, or country-specific weight change is used.
Newer monthly and quarterly observations come from the supplied Global Economic Monitor workbooks. They keep their individual periods, units, and seasonal adjustments. Year-over-year comparisons use the same month or quarter a year earlier and a positive baseline. The CPI trend is already a year-over-year percentage. Annual GEM rows, alternative adjustment versions, stock indices, and the unresolved reserves units do not enter this score.
Full WDI definitions, methodology, limitations, country notes, and available footnotes are preserved in the input download. Each source file has a SHA-256 hash. A source refresh or method change requires a versioned rebuild. These pages do not claim a live data connection.
Country Readiness V1: four measured conditions
Country Readiness is the first scored country release under the Commercial Diplomacy Index. It compares trade intensity, foreign investment, internet use, and logistics. It uses a 2024 reference edition, published October 20, 2026. It is separate from the wider six-pillar framework and the Sister City algorithms.
All 251 discovery entries are retained. Exactly 121 countries and reporting economies have all four required components and receive a score. Other places show their available facts, specific missing observations, and limited scoring coverage. Missing does not mean zero.
| Component | Source and period | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Trade intensity % of GDP | NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS 2024 | 25% |
| Foreign investment % of GDP | BX.KLT.DINV.WD.GD.ZS 2022–2024 · Arithmetic mean; all three annual shares required. | 25% |
| Internet use % of population | IT.NET.USER.ZS 2024 | 25% |
| Logistics 1–5 | LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ 2022 | 25% |
Trade intensity is exports plus imports as a share of GDP. Foreign investment is the mean of the three annual net-inflow shares of GDP. Negative investment values are retained. Logistics uses the WDI observation labeled 2022; the source describes the 2023 edition based on the 2022 survey. Later observations remain available in the Country Data Lab but do not change this fixed reference edition.
How the score works
- Require all four components. Use the stated periods exactly. No carry-forward, imputation, population cutoff, or country whitelist is applied.
- Compare each measure. Give each value a percentile among the same complete-record comparison group. Higher trade intensity, inward investment intensity, internet use, and logistics receive higher percentiles.
- Give each component equal weight. Average the four percentiles and round half up to two decimals using the exact rank-point ratio.
- Rank the published scores. Higher scores rank first. Equal two-decimal scores share a rank using 1, 2, 2, 4. Alphabetical placement within a tie does not break the tie.
Percentile = 100 × (number below the value + (number tied − 1) / 2) ÷ (comparison count − 1)
Readiness = 0.25 × Trade + 0.25 × Investment + 0.25 × Internet + 0.25 × Logistics
In the score formula, each component is its comparison percentile. Raw source values, annual investment inputs, source notes, component percentiles, coverage, and final ranks are available in the downloads.
What the score tells us
Equal weights are an explicit starting choice. They have not been fitted to observed business deals. The score describes four country conditions; it does not establish demand for a product, institutional activity, partnership results, or a causal effect of diplomacy. Trade/GDP ratios can favor small trading hubs. Foreign investment can include financial restructuring. Country, city, state, and regional scores are not interchangeable.
The calculation uses the separately dated World Bank snapshot described below. This is a National Data System calculation, not a World Bank ranking or endorsement. Validation checks cover source reproduction, missing values, ties, ranking order, coverage, download hashes, and sensitivity when one component is omitted. Source refreshes and method changes require a reviewed, versioned rebuild; scores do not update automatically.
Explore the published rankings · Scores and coverage (CSV) · Method and full inputs (JSON) · Validation and sensitivity audit
U.S. community rankings: shared evidence, separate measures
The U.S. community explorer connects version 1.0.0 of a fixed JSON publication derived from the supplied Follow Your Heart Community Migration V1.1.0 package. It preserves all 274 published communities and their 182,954 source ranking rows. The country mapping identifies 73 exact country-of-birth views. Regional, historic, subnational, and combined birthplace categories retain their source identities and are not forced into a modern-country code.
Birthplace, Mexican origin, ancestry, and Indigenous identity keep separate meanings. The country-profile heading “Where people born in [country] live in the United States” uses B05006 rows only. Where the package supplies only a related origin or ancestry view, that view receives its own heading. Mexican origin uses B03001_004E; the source records Mexico birthplace separately as B05006_160E. The package preserves that secondary lens metadata, but its Mexican-origin ranking rows cannot be used as Mexico-birthplace rows.
Rankings retain the source estimates, local population shares, competition ranks, and original row order. The source’s city markets group ZIPs assigned to a primary city and state, with a 50,000-resident market threshold. Only published positive-estimate rows are supplied. Absence is not a zero estimate. These are not municipal or CBSA totals. Margins of error are not available for these rollups, so point-estimate ranks do not establish significant differences.
The 40 B02020 Indigenous views preserve their source names, including Aztec, Maya, Mixtec, and Tarasco/Purepecha. The source extension used its checked direct ZIP-to-ZCTA bridge and required at least 99.99% numeric population coverage before an Indigenous market received a rank. B02021 group tallies remain context-only. AIAN-alone survey identities are different from tribal enrollment and do not represent all Indigenous people.
Source publications and feed verification
The base source identifies ACS_Demographic_Identity_US.duckdb / published.acs5_2024_identity_group_zip_long_current, with supplemental detailed-origin evidence from Relationship_Intelligence_US.duckdb / main.relationship_demographic_heritage_long_current. It records CERTIFIED_NDS_IDENTITY_COMMUNITY_PUBLICATION_V1_0_1. The Indigenous extension records CERTIFIED_NDS_POSITIONFORLOVE_DYNAMIC_HERITAGE_MATCH_V2_1_5, source system Move_PositionForLove_US.
Each feed retains its source URL, variable, period, source release, source certification reference, and SHA-256. The build checks all 182,954 rows against the supplied source package and verifies the top 10 previews and exact-country assignments. Full JSON feeds use COLUMNAR_V1: the columns array lists field names once, and each row lists values in that exact order. This compact format preserves source values, precision, and ranks. This new connection does not change any Commercial Diplomacy, Sister City, or Follow Your Heart score.
The separately connected master-clean serving layer retains selected ZIP-level Hispanic-origin and Indigenous summaries. It is not a complete group-by-ZIP table, and its top-group summaries are not substituted for complete city-market ranking values.
Download the fixed feed catalog and ISO3 mapping · Example country-of-birth JSON feed · Mexican-origin JSON feed · Aztec identity JSON feed.
Sister City index algorithms
The downloadable methodology describes two distinct products: research priorities for potential international city relationships, and a proposed model for evaluating the activity and results of established partnerships. Their formulas are separate from the broader six-pillar Commercial Diplomacy Index framework.
Start with the score.
Add context as you learn.
Research priority = the published Global Consumer Opportunity score. This edition needs only the released score, country, U.S. market, and source release. All 69 published leads can be explored now.
Community Bridge evidence appears beside each lead. City Population, Country Conversion, and Upstream Match Strength are optional context. They do not block this edition, and we do not add them to G again. G already contains upstream conversion, community, and affinity signals.
Higher G scores appear first. Equal scores share a priority rank; source lead IDs keep their original meaning. This identifies country-to-U.S.-market research priorities. It does not assign every foreign city a compatibility score or measure an existing partnership’s performance.
The earlier five-component international-city model remains available as a separate method. A new global city ranking can follow its own revised definition without holding back this research release.
Download the research-priority method · JSON ↗The current Sister City research release
The opportunity explorer includes every row from published.sister_city_ready_global_leads_current in the NDS Global Candidate V1.0.3 release, certified October 14, 2026. It contains 69 leads across 10 countries and 48 U.S. CBSA market areas: 56 Sister City research leads and 13 diaspora outreach leads. Its certification records contain 30 PASS, 0 WARN, and 0 FAIL checks. We reviewed the supplied read-only inspection on October 20, 2026.
The lead rank preserves the source's published order within that 69-row set. The prominent score is the Global Consumer Opportunity Index (G). Expand a lead to see the International Community Bridge Index (B), Country Conversion Percentile (C), and Upstream Match Strength (S). These are country-to-market research leads. The international-city model adds the City Population Index (P), using the documented 35% G, 25% B, 20% P, 15% C, and 5% S weights.
The 69 scored leads retain source-validated ISO3 country codes. Other discovery entries follow the explicitly labeled reference catalog; no new community-country join is implied. The community bridge uses birthplace evidence; ancestry is a separate upstream lens. Upstream Match Strength describes a U.S. market's strongest U.S.-market match. City population in the foreign-city model describes the source-covered city or geographic feature rather than a metropolitan population.
The international-city source also records 1,722 candidates and a 1,647-row U.S.-market shortlist in its October 18, 2026 V1.0.3 certification, with 42 PASS, 0 WARN, and 0 FAIL checks. Its country summary intentionally selects the top five cities per metro-country lead, totaling 345 rows across 10 countries. Those summary counts and averages describe that subset. The supplied inspection sampled only 200 rows from the larger candidate tables; this explorer publishes the complete 69-row country-to-market lead set.
The upstream Metro Match Publication V1.0.0 certification records 20 PASS, 0 WARN, and 0 FAIL checks. It reports 58,103 U.S.-market match rows and 2,156 country-origin bridge rows. These are research evidence counts, not counts of formal international sister-city agreements.
Build and certification dates identify releases. The inspection does not separately establish all underlying observation periods. Visitor-volume values are omitted from this explorer because the export does not establish their reference period separately. The downloadable CSV and JSON retain the reviewed scores and source release. The wider Commercial Diplomacy Index and the proposed Partnership Performance Index have separate methods and evidence requirements.
World Development Indicators country context
The Country Data Lab covers all 217 non-aggregate reporting economies in the official catalog, including the United States. The wider discovery catalog retains 251 countries, territories, and reporting economies; entries with no WDI series stay visible. It uses 12 reported World Bank indicators and four NDS calculated measures. The displayed snapshot comes from the official World Bank Indicators API, source 2, retrieved October 20, 2026. The response reports an October 8, 2026 update. It contains 101,885 non-null observations through 2025, with 5,502 observation-specific notes. Original acquisition details for the separate local database export were not established.
The local comparison is limited to the earlier 16-country extraction: 192 latest country-indicator values, 9,008 historical observations, zero invalid observations, and 64 calculated measures that reproduced from their inputs. A same-year comparison found differences in 66 of the 192 latest local values relative to the current API. The official response for those 16 countries also contained 112 additional observations, all for 2025. The comparison counts do not cover every newly added economy. The local database was opened read-only and remains unchanged. The site uses a separately dated official snapshot, and its comparison download preserves the local and official values.
| Calculated measure | Method |
|---|---|
| Tourism arrivals per 100 residents | 100 × international arrivals ÷ population, using the same year. These are arrival events, not unique visitors. |
| Export–import share difference | Exports (% of GDP) minus imports (% of GDP) in the same year. Unit: percentage points of GDP. |
| Three-year foreign investment average | The arithmetic mean of three consecutive annual FDI net-inflow shares. All three years must be present; negative values are retained. |
| Five-year change in internet use | Internet-use share in the selected year minus its share exactly five years earlier. Both endpoints must be present. Unit: percentage points. |
The comparison table uses one selected observation year across countries. Multi-year measures end in that year and show their start and end years. Missing inputs produce a blank value, with no zero-filling or carry-forward. Country profile cards show each series’ latest available value with its date; the detailed table labels historical observations. Trade shares above 100% and negative FDI or growth remain valid inputs.
Historical gaps are material. The API’s Nigeria trade-share series ends in 1960, several tourism series end between 1998 and 2020, and the LPI series stores its latest observation in 2022. The LPI metadata describes the 2023 edition using the 2022 survey. These dates are retained. Country measures describe national context and do not create six-pillar Commercial Diplomacy scores, measure partnership performance, or establish a causal effect of diplomacy.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, source 2. CC BY 4.0, subject to the dataset terms. National Data System calculated the four derived measures. The site provides definitions, source notes, a dated JSON snapshot, and a CSV source comparison. Data access and licensing. No World Bank endorsement is implied.
Global Chamber™ reference and spotlight
The Global Chamber™ spotlight includes all 615 records in the owner-supplied NDS enhanced reference CSV labeled 2026, received October 20, 2026. The file contains 162 distinct country/territory codes, 116 USA records, and 499 records under other codes. Every record is retained, with no country whitelist, population cutoff, or top-N selection. The display is alphabetical, not ranked.
Country codes are the documented join key. All supplied codes match the site’s reference catalog, including its explicitly labeled reporting-code exception for Kosovo. Country–city keys are unique within this file, both country-code columns agree, and all city labels are populated. These checks do not establish current chapter operation, membership, formal city boundaries, or trade results. The source does not provide state fields or GeoNames IDs; city links open a country-filtered name search rather than assigning an unreviewed city identifier.
The unnamed sixth column is empty in every row. Its values and all original labels are retained in the downloadable source and normalized directory. Source region labels are preserved for audit, with known classification issues such as New Zealand under Europe and Australia under Asia; they are not used to categorize directory results. The original CSV SHA-256 is 205ab8a2d2a1c3d1d58547cb340f2fd70d02f418f433eff498070c9bc6454755. The supplied metadata’s year and confidence tag are processing metadata, not a current-chapter verification date or a probability of business success.
Member benefits are attributed to the chamber’s official service pages, reviewed October 20, 2026. Their four-question presentation explains how network services relate to commercial diplomacy. No broader index score or verified partnership performance is calculated from a directory listing. The source CSV retains its original labels. Download the source coverage audit.
Local diplomacy networks and U.S. relocation
The diplomacy network guide summarizes official missions for Global Chamber™, Global Ties U.S., and World Affairs Councils of America, reviewed October 20, 2026. Official directories provide location discovery for the latter two; their locations have not been imported or represented as a live API. Descriptions of commercial-diplomacy contributions are this publication’s interpretation, not measured outcomes or a formal partnership claim.
The U.S. relocation guide connects city and metro research questions with existing Move Where Love Is ZIP housing tools and ZipCode.mobi. The owner-supplied master-clean Parquet attachment contains 39,487 unique five-digit ZIP records and 157 fields. The connected ZIP community API retains all records, including 33,703 DIRECT_MATCH and 5,784 ZIP_ONLY_NO_DIRECT_ZCTA rows. Its 912 prefix JSON files retain source-selected summaries, counts, shares, variable IDs, source strings, and geographic flags. The source has 32,921 available heritage headlines, 33,703 broad heritage summaries, and 32,991 detailed community summaries; these distinct coverage counts must not be interchanged. The index includes retained second and third identities without inventing missing variable IDs or shares. This file contains selected summaries, not a full community-by-ZIP matrix. Search absence does not establish community absence. No city totals are calculated from these records.
The source’s ACS context is labeled 2024 5-Year. Heritage-specific observation periods and margins of error are not separately included in the attached file. Published shares were checked against each mapped Census area’s total population, with 228,817 matching count/share/denominator combinations. Missing values remain missing, and all five-digit ZIP strings retain leading zeros. Language measures are not present and are not inferred. Ancestry, birthplace, Hispanic origin, detailed identity, and broad race context retain separate definitions. The source file SHA-256 is 039246c4ea80768ea3f3ceec5b387e4c856ec3cb11684e5ce24397cc0925e8cc. The site serves a dated snapshot; changes on the owner’s Windows E: drive are not automatically synchronized. Complete community API source audit. These community lenses do not alter housing, business, or Sister City scores. A city or metro comparison requires source-native measures or a documented geographic aggregation; matching names or ZIP digits does not establish a join.
Historical market entry, migration, and city geography
The Doing Business history connects 191 economy codes and 22 separately coded city observations, preserving original series definitions and source years 2003–2019. Its 2019 overall source ranks compare 190 economies. The ZIP migration history retains 124,071 source records across 2019–2022 and separately labels annual display ranks. The 500 Cities maps display all 29,305 supplied tract portions, original keys, and 2010 population context. These layers enrich research without changing the fixed country scores, adding an undocumented ZIP-to-tract join, or assigning business outcomes.
World city facts and business guides
The GeoNames city and place directory now includes every populated-place feature in a separately dated official world snapshot, without a country or population cutoff. Place facts and country language notes have explicit source scope. They do not update the certified Sister City scores. Read the city-source methods. Four plain-language business guides explain customers, suppliers, investment and research, and business access. Their examples are hypothetical and do not assert measured opportunities.
Discovery coverage and score eligibility
The previous 16-country website list has been removed. All entries in the connected reference geography catalog can be found, even when a source series or ready lead is missing. The 1,722 screened foreign-city rows are not the full worldwide city universe. Source population thresholds, country-to-market evidence, and shortlist caps still constrain the existing certified model. Expanding discovery does not silently change its scores or substitute zero for missing evidence. See source coverage and the industry research layer.
The six pillars
| Pillar | Evidence to investigate |
|---|---|
| Trade Readiness | Exports, import activity, trade corridors, logistics access, port connections, and market diversification. |
| Investment Attraction | Business climate, growth sectors, foreign direct investment potential, incentives, and site-selection strength. |
| Global Relationship Capacity | Sister cities, consulates, trade missions, chambers, diaspora networks, universities, and international partnerships. |
| Tourism & Visitor Markets | International visitor demand, hospitality infrastructure, destination visibility, conventions, and cultural exchange. |
| Business Access | Small business export readiness, procurement pathways, market-entry support, and chamber-led opportunity systems. |
| Global Storytelling | Media visibility, brand identity, cultural diplomacy, public narrative, and place-based reputation. |
Compare like with like
Cities, states, regions, and countries are different geography levels. Future rankings should compare places within a clearly defined level and universe, with disclosed coverage and periods. A country’s result should not be presented as directly comparable to a city’s result.
ISO3 country codes provide a consistent country identifier. They are an identification backbone, not a score. Regions such as Africa and North America require an explicit country universe and aggregation method; they do not receive a country code.
Before a ranking is published
- Define the universe. State which places are included, their geography definitions, and the publication period.
- Document the evidence. Identify each source, reference period, geography, unit, and limitation. Separate an existing relationship from a documented commercial outcome.
- Establish coverage. Disclose missing evidence and minimum eligibility. Missing data must not silently become a zero.
- Set the scoring method. Publish indicator definitions, normalization, weights, treatment of outliers, and aggregation rules before presenting results.
- Validate and version. Reconcile inputs, examine sensitivity, document changes, and attach a release version to published results.
Building the wider six-pillar measures
Country Readiness V1 uses the four-component method above. Additional six-pillar scores require their own indicator definitions, periods, coverage rules, and weights. Equal visual treatment of the six pillars does not assign them numerical weights. Country readiness does not substitute for direct evidence of relationships, business access services, or storytelling.
Measuring the work over time
Diplomacy can take years to produce trade or investment results. The Global Chamber™ activity evidence release documents an earlier part of that story: programming continuity, registration interest, repeat contact activity, and media coverage. It publishes dated aggregate measures from the supplied research archive, with source definitions and annual downloads. It contributes evidence for global relationship capacity, business access, and global storytelling without changing the fixed Country Readiness or Sister City scores.
Activity and results keep their own meaning. Registration is recorded interest; check-in records are needed for attendance. An introduction or follow-up log can connect activity to a later project, sale, or investment. Long delays do not prevent us from measuring today’s activity or following its results over later years.
Relationships and outcomes
A sister city agreement, a trade mission, or a chamber membership indicates a connection. Evidence of participation, follow-through, business access, or a measurable outcome is needed to understand what that connection produces. The framework does not assume that a relationship alone caused economic growth.
Using the readiness inventory
The six checklist selections document the areas a visitor says they can support with evidence. They are stored in that browser and can be downloaded. The checklist is not independently verified and is not an index score.
Help build the evidence
Chambers, economic development organizations, universities, public agencies, and research partners can help identify sources, document relationships, and clarify the decisions leaders need to make.
Discuss a research partnership