Leading into its yearly conference in Davos, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum expressed some cautious optimism for the future of humanity. Each year, the organization releases a report called the Global Cooperation Barometer, assessing the state of the world’s economy, technology, biosphere, public health, and politics. While international security has taken a big dive in the past two years, most other metrics seem to be trending in the right direction, says the WEF.
The Barometer claims that “global cooperation was resilient for much of the past decade.” However, the WEF believes that we’ve lost some ground since 2020.
Bright Spots on Trade, Climate
To come up with an overall cooperation rating, the WEF evaluates 42 variables across five compound categories: trade and capital, innovation and technology, climate and nature capital, health and wellness, and peace and security. While the five overall categories seem straightforward, some of the individual variables are extremely granular and diverse. For example, climate and nature evaluates “emissions” (which are flattening and have decreased on a per-capita basis since 2012), and the Ocean Health Index (which increased a little bit).
From there, the WEF takes an average of all the different categories to get a numerical rating. So far, 2020 is the highest-rated year on record, in spite of a dip in the health and wellness category, likely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The most recent year measured, 2022, saw only a slight decrease compared to 2020.
In fact, two of the categories measured have been getting better in the past three years. Trade and capital, and climate and nature, are well above their 2020 ratings. The first category in particular saw tremendous growth, especially in “developing countries’ share of foreign direct investment,” “goods trade [the international trading of material resources],” and “official development assistance [government funds for economic improvements in developing countries].”
Conflict on the Rise
The big reason for the report’s downward trend is peace and security. With the invasion of Ukraine, fighting in Ethiopia, and a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, this field has plummeted since 2020, representing the single biggest loss in any category. (The report doesn’t include an analysis of 2023 events.)In fact, peace and security has easily had the most volatile trendline since 2012, with huge, unpredictable peaks and valleys. Every other category has had a steady, if inconsistent, upward climb.
Just about every variable in peace and security has gone in the wrong direction, particularly “fatalities from conflict.” Forcibly displaced people” is close behind. The WEF cited the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War as a major source of strife, as well as refugee crises in both Syria and Afghanistan.
The WEF reminded readers that cooperation and conflict are not diametrically opposed. In fact, they’ve existed side-by-side for most of human history. As an example, the report cites the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The two powers worked together to cure smallpox and repair the ozone layer, while still building up nuclear arsenals that could destroy one another.
Gaps in the Reporting
Still, 2023 may not have been as rosy as the report suggests. The charts focus on data between 2020 and 2022; the report addresses 2023-specific advancements only in the discussion sections. This may be why major positive events, such as the High Seas Treaty on marine protection, and negative ones, such as the Israel-Hamas war, do not appear in the study.
Furthermore, the weight and inclusion of any given variable is highly subjective. The health and wellness category is illustrative here. While the category did decline between 2020 and 2021, its overall rating remained high, and bounced right back in 2022—in spite of a global pandemic that killed millions. Improvements in categories such as “child mortality,” maternal mortality,” and “health-related goods trade” kept the category’s trendline going up. In fact, the biggest loss in the category had little to do with excess deaths or lack of preparation; it was reduced spending in “cross-border pharma R&D.”
Appropriately, the theme of this year’s Davos conference is “Rebuilding Trust.”
Worth at Davos
Worth magazine will host three panels at the event, all dealing with the ramifications of AI in the workplace.
