Shareable intelligence

São Tomé and Príncipe

4 objects, each built so its context cannot be cropped away. Every one states the scenario range rather than a single value, carries the confidence level and the date the evidence was last checked, and links back to the full page it came from.

Copy a card's link to share it. Screenshot one and the qualifications come with it, because they are inside the frame rather than under it.

Country outlook · Central Africa

São Tomé and Príncipe

Three scenarios, two horizons. The range is the finding — a single number would imply knowledge nobody has.

Measure	Latest observed	2031	2036
Output per person	$4,084 2025	$3,921 – $4,673	$3,789 – $5,228
Electricity access	78% 2024	81% – 84%	83% – 88%
Internet use	59% 2024	69% – 78%	74% – 86%

Growth bands: -0.68% · 0.79% · 2.27% a year per person, from São Tomé and Príncipe's own 15-year record (2011–2025) — mean ± 0.85 standard deviations, clamped to its own 5th–95th percentile. Not an outside estimate of what this country might do.

Who this outlook leaves out

Households already spending most of their income on food
Firms whose expansion depends on credit, in an economy holding little of it relative to output

2031 versus 2036 · São Tomé and Príncipe

Two horizons, asked the same question

By 2031

Household electricity access moves from 77.7% of the population (2024) to between 81% and 84% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 83% — a rise of 4.8 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 47,175 would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 6,402 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 59.1% of the population (2024) to between 69% and 78% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 73% — a rise of 14 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 72,514 would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 25,707 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $3,921 to $4,673 by 2031. The $752 between them is under a quarter of today's $4,084.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 269,570 — roughly 29,316 more people than in 2025, about 162,669 of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2031 have already been born.

By 2036

Household electricity access moves from 77.7% of the population (2024) to between 83% and 88% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 85% — a rise of 7.5 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 43,700 would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 9,876 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 59.1% of the population (2024) to between 74% and 86% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 80% — a rise of 20.8 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 59,350 would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 38,872 fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $3,789 to $5,228 by 2036. The $1,439 between them is a quarter to a half of today's $4,084.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 295,273 — roughly 55,019 more people than in 2025, about 179,771 of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2036 have already been born.

What has to happen first

For the Acceleration band to describe the decade, growth per person has to hold near 2.3% a year. This country has reached that rate before — its best year in the window was 3.5% — but has not sustained it across the 15-year record the band is drawn from.

What the growth model cannot see · São Tomé and Príncipe

Population pressure & the youth cohort

Material — Could push the outcome outside the modelled band.

Population is projected to rise 20.5% by 2036 (244,994 → 295,273). Services, housing and jobs must expand at that pace before any improvement in living standards registers.

Why the band cannot contain it

Per-capita growth already nets out population, which hides the absolute scale of what must be built. A constant GDP per capita with a doubling population means twice the schools for the same living standard.

What would invalidate the modelled band

A significant revision to the UN World Population Prospects for this country. The population path here is carried through unchanged and is the least uncertain input on the page.

Assessed in words and deliberately not converted into a probability. This platform does not publish likelihoods it cannot derive from evidence.

AI evidence state · São Tomé and Príncipe

5 of 20 dimensions rest on a document or a measurement

5 dimensions have not been examined at all — which is a statement about this platform's research, not about São Tomé and Príncipe. There is no readiness score here: ranking countries by a weighted sum of twenty evidence states would manufacture a number nobody measured.

3 Measured A published measurement exists for this country and has been read.

2 Documented A policy, law, contract or programme document exists. No measurement of its effect has been found.

3 Inferred Assessed from adjacent indicators. Nothing AI-specific was found for this country; the reading is circumstantial.

7 Not evident Searched, and nothing was found. Informative — but the absence of a published record is not proof that nothing exists.

5 Unexamined This platform has not looked. This is a statement about the research, not about the country.

Full brief for São Tomé and Príncipe · Open in the atlas · Method · How to read the labels