The World Economic Forum's Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 shows that international cooperation has stalled, mainly due to rising geopolitical tensions. However, there are some positive developments in areas like climate finance, trade, and innovation.
Here's a simplified explanation:
What is the Global Cooperation Barometer? A tool that measures how well countries are working together globally. It looks at different areas like trade, technology, climate, health, and security.
What are the main findings?
- Global cooperation has stopped improving after a decade of progress.
- This is largely due to problems with peace and security, caused by conflicts in places like the Middle East, Ukraine, and Sudan.
What areas show some positive signs?
- Vaccine distribution: Countries have worked together to distribute vaccines.
- Scientific research: International collaboration continues in scientific fields.
- Renewable energy: There is increased cooperation in developing and using renewable energy.
- Climate finance: More money is being invested in climate-related projects.
- Trade in low-carbon technologies: Countries are trading more technologies that help reduce carbon emissions.
- Foreign direct investment: Investment from one country to another has increased, especially in semiconductors and green energy.
- Labour migration and remittances: People moving to work in other countries and sending money back home has increased beyond pre-pandemic levels.
What about technology and innovation?
- There has been progress in technology due to the increasing digitalization of the world economy.
- New technologies are being adopted more widely, and the price of lithium batteries (used in electric vehicles and other devices) has decreased.
- However, new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to new problems, like an "AI arms race" (countries competing to develop the most powerful AI weapons).
What about climate change?
- There is more cooperation on climate goals, with increased investment and trade in clean energy technologies.
- However, more urgent action is needed to reach "net-zero" emissions targets (balancing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted and removed from the atmosphere).
What about health?
- Overall health has improved since the pandemic, but progress is slower than before 2020.
- Some areas of health cooperation have declined, but others, like child and maternal mortality rates, are still improving.
What about trade and economic activity?
- Trade in goods has decreased by 5%, mainly because of slower economic growth in China and other developing countries.
Key Takeaway: While global cooperation in some areas has stalled due to geopolitical tensions and conflicts, there are still opportunities for countries to work together on important issues like climate change, health, and technology.
In simple terms: Countries are not working together as well as they used to because of conflicts around the world. However, there is still some good news: countries are cooperating on things like climate change, scientific research, and some aspects of trade. But more work is needed to address global challenges effectively.