Global Cooperation Barometer 2025

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Anais Rassat: Welcome to the Media Briefing on the release of the second edition of the Global Cooperation Barometer, a key tool and an accompanying Insight report from the World Economic Forum prepared in partnership with McKinsey and Company. My name is Anais Rassat. I am head of media content at the World Economic Forum.

The release of the barometer comes two weeks ahead of the Forum's Annual Meeting and is meant to inform conversations that will take place in Davos.

More importantly, it is meant to help stakeholders around the world, in the public and private sectors navigate what is a complex and uncertain moment.

The Global Cooperation Barometer measures the status of global cooperation across five dimensions or pillars, the first being trade and capital; then innovation and technology; climate and natural capital; health and wellness; and finally, peace and security. And it aggregates these findings into one overall measurement of global cooperation.

While the barometer showcases a world grappling with heightened competition and conflict, it also presents various areas where leaders can drive progress through innovative collaboration.

I'm joined in Geneva today by Børge Brende, president and CEO of the World Economic Forum. Bob Sternfels, global managing partner of McKinsey, is joining from the Middle East. And today we have 30 journalists online covering around 20 different countries worldwide.

So Børge, the barometer, finds that global cooperation, while above pre-pandemic levels, has actually stagnated over the past three years after trending positively for for nearly a decade. So what can you tell us about the current state of cooperation in the world today and why a tool like the barometer is so useful?

Børge Brende: Thank you and Happy New Year to all the journalists joining us. And for some of you, welcome also to our annual meeting in Davos in a few weeks, one and a half week, to be exact.

And we have unprecedented participation expected in Davos. And I think one of the reasons is that people really feel the need to connect the dots and understand the landscape that we're now moving into. And I think the barometer with the 41 different indicators gives us a feel of where global cooperation stands today.

One can say that the three decades of increased cooperation that we saw after the Cold War has definitely ended. We are between world orders. We had one world order post the Cold War that enhanced and incentivised cooperation. And now we don't really know what the new world order is about. But cooperation also has to play a role in that new world order.

But currently between orders, and we know that from history too, there is disorder. So one has to really struggle to find ways of cooperating when countries are also competing, competing for increased influence in a new world.

And hopefully this new world order is not the jungle growing back. But there is ways also to collaborate in a very competitive world.

One can look at the situation like glass half empty or glass half full. We see from the latest figures that we do expect around 3.1% economic growth this year. It's much better than a few years ago during the pandemic, but is far below the trend growth we saw during the time of cooperation where we saw for decades more than 4% trend growth.

We can also see that trade is struggling, but at the same time, it is not declining. It's still growing. We at the Forum expect more than 3% growth in the global trade this year. It's also much lower than in the past, where trade was the engine of growth, but it's still growing and we're seeing also very innovative ways now of dealing with trade. Maybe there is no big breakthroughs on multilateral agreements, but before the holidays, we saw that Mercosur and the EU came together and agreed on a trade agreement. And if you look at the EU and Mercosur, it is more, it's close to 30% of the global GDP. So that's a very consequential agreement if it goes through.

On the more geopolitical scene when it comes to wars and conflicts, that's where this report shows that things are really deteriorating. We are seeing more conflicts than in the past. And the numbers shows that the number of conflict-related deaths has risen to the highest level in 30 years. We also see more people displaced than before. Unfortunately, a record amount of 122 million people are displaced. And we know there is a lot of pressure also on migration.

We're also seeing that the multilateral landscape is changing. We see that mega regional deals are gone, like the Mercosur or EU. We also see that new organisations like the BRICS are growing. During their summit they invited six new members. So that is one bloc that is growing and we also see other kinds of corporations.

What we really will bring into Davos is how to collaborate in a very fragmented world and a world where we see more and more cooperation because that is needed, because there are challenges that are cross-border challenges.

We knew from the pandemics where 7 million people died from Covid that a pandemic like Covid doesn't travel with a passport. The borders are no security for that. You have to collaborate. And we see it, for example, now the bird flu that is emerging in the US where the federal government has put hundreds of millions now to fight this.

We just have to also in the future, make sure that when it comes to climate change, when it comes to, for example, cybercrime that costs the world now 2 trillion USD a year, there should be enough common interest to collaborate even in a competitive world.

So I hope that this barometer will then be a useful tool not only for journalists, not only for the World Economic Forum, but also for the leaders around the world to really take the temperature on where we stand today. What are the risks? What are the opportunities? So, some first thoughts from my side.

Anais Rassat: Thank you Børge. Now, Bob, Børge mentions peace and security, also trade as two of the pillars. So we see this intriguing trend of peace and security declining sharply. Can you tell us a bit more about these other four pillars that are more resilient and what has been taking place at a broad level across the five pillars that are analysed in the report?

Bob Sternfels: Happy to Anais, and and thank you Børge and happy new year everybody that's that's listening.

And I just wanted to maybe start by saying we're very proud to collaborate with the World Economic Forum on this barometer. This is the second edition. And I think as the name implies, the idea is to allow us to at a much more granular level to understand how cooperation is progressing in the world.

And so the longitudinal aspect of this I think is very powerful and we're committed to continue working with the World Economic Forum to provide this information so that we can see are things changing year on year.

Anais, I think to your question, I would want to unpack the barometer a bit more. And it's underpinned as both you and Borge mentioned, with this notion of complexity and uncertainty in the world. And I think it is a call out for innovation around cooperation.

If I get into the results, at the headline level, you might say everything's okay. And you look at aggregate cooperation remaining above pre-pandemic levels, largely flatlined since 2020, but still at a fairly high level. I think that that misses the nuance here, though, and I think the beauty of the metrics that, Borge, you talked about, are where to then draw attention to. And so we've broken these into into pillars, five pillars.

One pillar is clearly down, which is peace and security. And I'll come to that in a second. The others are actually above pre-pandemic, but each highlights a different watch out. And I might just spend a couple of minutes on each of these pillars to give the audience some some headlines.

So the first pillar relates to trade and capital flows. And one positive aspect to call out is that foreign direct investment actually increased and it grew faster than GDP in 2023. And you might say that's a good thing. And it is. I think the watch out is it became increasingly concentrated in a small set of developed countries, which leaves real questions about FDI in the global South. And so that's a call out as we think about cooperation.

Furthermore, a lot of the FDI was concentrated in strategic sectors. Think of semiconductors, battery technology, renewables. That is underpinned by a more recent trend about industrial policy, particularly in the US and Europe. And it hearkens a question about the role that industrial policy may or may not play with respect to cooperation.

Trade in services continued to grow faster than than GDP. And that trend continues. However, trade in goods fell by 5% in 2023, with China and the emerging economies accounting for 60% of this drop. And so you do see an impact in trade. And furthermore, when you look at trade between geopolitically aligned partners, you see an increase there. And so you start to see the role of geopolitics mixing with trade going forward. And that has some implications about how we think about cooperation going forward. So that's pillar one.

Pillar two relates to innovation and technology. And Borge, you made mention of this and at one level you see continued growth, growth in areas like IT services, cross-border data flows, and individuals accessing the internet, and all that's a positive aspect for cooperation. But you do see stresses, you see stresses emerging in cross-border patents dropping, cross-border R&D dropping and marked increases in national funding for AI. All of those may hearken to a future slowdown in cooperations around innovation and technology that we probably should should watch for.

Anais, you mentioned, climate and natural capital as one of the shining parts here. And it is. You see continued growth in this category. We've reduced the emissions intensity of GDP, largely driven by upticks in EV deployment and renewable energy, and that's something to celebrate. But there's also the recognition that less than 10% of the low emissions technologies required to hit a net zero by 2050 have been deployed.

So although this aspect of cooperation is moving faster, we're nowhere near any of the aspirations that that have been set in terms of where we want to get to.

One of the ones I actually worry the most about is Borge, one that you hit on, which is around health and wellness. And although we've seen a positive move in child mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy over the last year, you've started to see slowdowns that may that may hinder advancement and cooperation on this going forward. And so you start to look at development assistance slow down, pharmaceutical R&D, cross-border R&D slow down. These have declined by about 15%. You further see the lack of cooperation around pandemics, as you had mentioned, Borge, and you start to get worried about a future aspect of how do we innovate around cooperation in health and wellness to ensure that these progressive outcomes continue, they don't actually slow down, and we call out a risk there.

And maybe finally, the last one, Anais, you mentioned, on peace and security, I think this is the most obvious one, right? We see a real decline in this on multiple dimensions, driven by geopolitical tensions and crises around the world and the lack of multilateral institutions being effective to to navigate these.

So hopefully that gives you a little bit more granular picture and nuance, which was, I think, a term that we use last year on our barometer.

Anais Rassat: Thank you Bob, thank you for breaking down why and how these areas are performing. Maybe I'd like to move on to a question back to Borge. So now that we've seen these different pillars and how they're doing in practice, what can leaders do to evaluate and forge partnerships and deliver tangible results, so how can they approach cooperation in this in this new world?

Børge Brende: So the reality is that the global economy is more integrated than than at any other time in history and trade is still growing. And also, as Bob rightly underlined, foreign direct investments are still growing.

And when we're so interconnected, a lot of the challenges are not only domestic or national challenges, but are common challenges.

I touched on cybercrime already - 2 trillion U.S. dollars lost in cybercrime annually. And unfortunately, we have indications at the World Economic Forum that if this is not followed up with closer collaboration between the big players in the future, we could see like 5 trillion U.S. dollars lost every year.

And even if there is fierce competition between the G-2, the US and China, almost 50% of the global economy. I think there is a common interest and coming up with guardrails and also traffic rules and really getting at the criminals that are behind cyber crime, because we know that our data flows and the whole ecosystem is at the core of our economy.

We also know that the new technologies, GenAI and others, can lead to extraordinary growth in the years to come. And we do need growth. We believe that the global economy in the coming years can grow more than 4 trillion U.S. dollars based on these new technologies, and the coming decade, we can see an increase in global productivity by 10%.

But we also know that GenAI raises challenges, and I think that there is a possibility and we will have in-depth discussions in Davos about this that I think is a good idea that humans are on top of algorithms and not algorithms on top of the humans.

These are questions definitely where we have to collaborate. We know also the state of our oceans and plastics are areas where there are great challenges. We also know that there is conflicts, an increase in conflicts. There are some silver linings. That's good. But we also see a proliferation of proxy wars where there is a war in one country, and it is then also followed up on and supported by other countries that are not, that lead to this proxy situation. We really need to work very closely together so we avoid this proliferation of proxy wars in Africa. I'm very worried about the situation in Sudan. It's a humanitarian catastrophe. I'm also very worried about a situation in Somalia, where we have a chance to discuss also the Horn of Africa in Davos we'll have the president of Somalia there.

So in the more multipolar world, if it's totally without multilateralism, that would be a very, very precarious situation. So even in a more multipolar world, we need to secure our traffic rules and we need to secure also multilateral cooperation.

Anais Rassat: Thank you, Børge. I suggest we move to some questions from journalists. So we currently have journalists from 20 different countries online. Maybe we can start with a question from Caixin Media, Yue Yue. If you could ask your question live?

Yue Yue, Caixin Media: Hello. My name is Yue Yue an I'm a journalist with Caixin Media in China. My question is, what specific and actionable recommendations does the barometer provide for overcoming challenges in regions or sectors where cooperation has been particularly difficult? For example, areas experiencing geopolitical tensions, economic disparities, or other challenges that come to international collaboration? Thank you.

Anais Rassat: Thank you for the question. Perhaps Børge, would you like to?

Børge Brende: Yes, I'm happy to go first. Maybe Bob would like to also fill in.

And, you know, we do have numbers and statistics now on what the cost of this integrated world would mean. For example, on the trade side, if we saw a very protectionist, fragmented world on the trade side, that could really lead to 7-8% drop in the global GDP. That is like the same as what would come out of a depression. I don't think we'll end there. But I'm just saying that this report shows that we will need to continue to also find ways of collaboration.

And as Bob alluded to, trade is also changing. We used to have a lot of growth in goods that has stagnated, but where we see a tripling of the growth is and data flows, digital trade and the services. And in these areas we don't have rules in the same way when it comes to trade as we have for traditional goods. This is an area where we really need to collaborate.

I also think that we have to find ways of, as I already mentioned on the GenAI, ways of making sure there is a win win situation. On climate and nature, there are some positive signals. You know, we saw 2 trillion U.S. dollars being invested in the renewables last year. That's a major step forward. At the same time, we know that last year was the hottest year on record. So this is important, but it's not sufficient. And we know that CO2 travels also and as not, the borders don't stop greenhouse gases. So we will have to rely on a global compact also in that area.

And as everybody mentioned, on future pandemics, there is no other way than using the tools we have. Early warnings. We have to come together and put all the resources behind if we see really future pandemics and we have to move much faster than we did with Covid. That was the worst pandemic we had seen in 100 years. But I don't think it will take a hundred years before we see the next pandemics. I'm sorry to say.

Anais Rassat: Thank you Børge. Bob?

Bob Sternfels: Maybe if it's okay. Anais, I'd just build on that for a second, because I'm right with you Børge. And I think the question is a great one.

You know, the whole notion when we set out to build the barometer together was to provide the fact base and and allow for some early warning call outs to focus conversation on the solutions as opposed to develop the solution themselves.

This was meant to be where to shine a spotlight, if you will. And and and I think the the interesting part is it starts to shine the spotlight on 4 or 5 places that are ripe for figuring out win, win new forms of cooperation, to your point.

You know, if I pick a few, look at you could be very excited that FDI increased. But the call out in the worry is it went to a few concentrated developed countries. So how do we think way, way about a notion of creating the right incentive for FDI to the global South point?

Trade - we actually think about the resiliency of trade and the notion that trade is starting to become more concentrated with geopolitically aligned countries. How do we think about resilient trade as opposed to concentrated trade? That was something that we talked about last year and it's exacerbating.

On climate, the notion that this year alone the insurance costs will be 135 billion for natural disasters. So there's real costs now. We noted that we're making progress, but we're not making progress fast enough.

And maybe finally on health, and this is one if I were to pick one of the pillars I might accentuate the most, which is this early warning call out on the drop of cross-border R&D and the lack of cooperation around pandemics. Borge, you highlighted this, but this is a natural win win win, that if we could align on these two things, will have better outcomes for everyone in terms of cooperation.

Anais Rassat: Thank you, Bob. Let's take another question, from the China Media Group.

Jingjing Yang, China Media Group: Hello. Good morning and Happy New Year to everyone. I'm Jingjing Yang from China Media Group. So my question here is, under the current circumstances in the world, what positive signs do you see for the global corporation and more importantly, what moves we make according to them? Thank you.

Anais Rassat: Thank you. Bob, can you comment on the the positive signs of global cooperation today?

Bob Sternfels: Yes. You know, and again, I think there's there's nuance in all of this. And so some of the places that I would call out as things to ensure that we keep momentum on are the continued rapid acceleration of cross-border data flows. And how do we continue to perpetuate that in a world that becomes increasingly digital? Cross-border data flows would be one one call out.

The second is, although I called it out as a concern around the environment, the rapid acceleration of investment in both mitigation and abatement technologies accelerated faster than ever before. How do we keep the momentum going in that particular space?

And then finally, if I were to pick a third one, because there's many aspects through this, but the growth in services, I know we talk a lot about physical goods of trade, but the growth in services outstrip GDP growth.

These would be a few things that, I know we tend to focus on what we want to improve upon, but there may be these 3 or 4 areas that we say, look, we don't want to lose the momentum on, and those might be a few call out, at least from from my side, looking at the at the underlying 41 metrics.

Anais Rassat: Thank you. Thank you, Bob. So we have time for one more question. I suggest we take one from Filippo Santelli, La Repubblica. If you could ask your question live, please.

Filippo Santelli, La Repubblica: Hi, everyone. How do you expect Donald Trump's second term to impact on global cooperation considering that he's no big fan of multilateral institutions and agreements. And more specifically, how do you expect Donald Trump to do impact on the cooperation between the United States and Europe? Thanks a lot.

Anais Rassat: In one minute, perhaps, Børge, a question on Trump.

Børge Brende: I thought you were going to give this opportunity to Bob. Joke aside, you know, we do have also experience with Trump 1 administration, and the trade and cooperation between Europe and the US continued to grow during the first term. So let's see what now comes out of policies from the new administration.

Those are a lot of European leaders now seeing Mr. Trump, also including the NATO secretary general has been at Mar a Lago.

I do believe that there will be more focus on tariffs and also focus on industry policies. But I think the toughest competition will be between the US and China. And here it will be very interesting to see how this pans out because the two economies are also very integrated to each other. But we already see that, for example, Chinese export is not as much relying on the US market as it used to be.

A few years ago, 25% of the Chinese export went to the US. Today the numbers are 12-13%. So we already see that there is a bit of friendshoring happening.

But at the same time we know that a lot of the challenges are common challenges. So, you know, companies are very use to compete with each other, but they also cooperate on some areas, setting standards and also making sure that things are a bit aligned. And I think this is what we have to get used to in the new world order is a very competitive world order. And I think the new Trump administration will underpin this. But I think history has shown us that we are able to also deal with that and grapple with that.

I choose to look at it as the glass half full and not half empty, as I said at the beginning.

Bob Sternfels: The only add I'd have on that one is I think we all know it's very early to make any prescriptive calls yet on on what the next four years will or foretell from the U.S.

I would say that the tariffs are a real concern for the for the business community in the United States, as it should be for for business leaders around the world. And we'll we'll see how that plays out.

You know, on the other side of the of the ledger, though, I would say that when you look at several of the nominees, many come from a business background and have a deep grounding in the imperative for economic growth to be able to provide the resource to achieve all the other objectives. And so there's some maybe positivity on the other side around perhaps a fairly pro pro-growth type of mindset, you know, coming from this administration.

And I think the other aspect maybe you talked about, Filippo, multilateral. We may have to get innovative around what the mechanisms are. You know, are the mechanisms more regional or bilateral as opposed to fully multilateral as we explore new vehicles for for cooperation. Those may be a few things we might need to explore in terms of the the problem solving.

Anais Rassat: Thank you. Thank you Bob for that answer. So we've now reached the end of questions from the media and the end of this media briefing. Thank you to all the media who have joined us. Thank you to both Børge Brende and Bob Sternfels, our panellists.