International Comparison Program

The International Comparison Program (shortened ICP) is a partnership of statistical groups from up to 199 countries guided by the World Bank. The main partners are the World Bank, IMF, UN, ADB, OECD, CISSTAT, Eurostat, AfDB ESCWA, ECLAC, DFID, ABS, IDB, NMoFA. These partners are also part of the executive board.

The Program creates ways to compare prices and amounts for a country's total output, called gross domestic product (GDP). It uses something called purchasing power parities (PPPs) to do this. The ICP does surveys to collect price and spending information for many goods and services every few years (the last two surveys were six years apart). These surveys look at all parts of a country's GDP, like things people buy, services, government work, and big items for businesses. The ICP tries to make GDPs from different countries easier to compare by using PPPs.

Each area has its own groups that help with the ICP. These groups work with national offices that collect the data. The regional groups give directions, help collect data, organize it, and check it. They also finish the regional comparisons.

The ICP has shared its PPP results ten times. The first time was in 1970 (with a study from 1967), and the latest was in 2021.