Appendix B: Executive Opinion Survey: National Risk Perceptions

Table B.1 presents the top five risks for each of the 124 economies surveyed by the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey (EOS) between May and September 2021. Over 12,000 leaders answered the following question: “What five risks will pose a critical threat to your country in the next two years?” and were asked to select these from a list of 35 risks, with no particular order. “Risk 1” indicates the most frequently selected risk in each economy. Where there is a tie, the tied risks are presented alphabetically in the same cell, separated by a dotted line (“---”) and the next cell in the row contains an ellipsis (“...”). For example, in Armenia, two risks (“human-made environmental damage” and “large-scale involuntary migration”) are tied for third place and there is, therefore, no risk in fourth place.

The question posed to EOS respondents is comparable to the following question asked to GRPS respondents: “Please identify your top five global risks of concern [that will become a critical threat to the world] over the next 0–2 years”. The list of 35 risks to select from in the EOS is also comparable to the list of risks in the Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), except for two new risks that were added to the GRPS after the EOS was conducted—“geoeconomic confrontations” and “pollution-driven harms to human health”—and one risk that changed name from “geopolitization of strategic resources” in the EOS to “geopolitical contestation of strategic resources” in the GRPS (see Appendix C, Global Risks Perception Survey Technical Notes).