The Global Cooperation Barometer, a collaboration between WEF and McKinsey & Company, looks back at the last 11 years, from 2012 through 2022, to establish a trend line of global cooperation.
The report, the WEF notes, is intended to serve as a tool for leaders to better understand the contours of cooperation broadly, with the barometer structured along five dimensions of global connection: trade and capital, innovation and technology, climate and natural capital, health and wellness, and peace and security.
The barometer indicates that after trending positively for much of the past decade, global cooperation has been mildly reversing since 2020, down 2 per cent.
The report also sets out a series of recommendations for business and government leaders. This includes identifying avenues toward advancing shared interest that can exist despite competition, otherwise known as “coopetition.”
Further, it recommends using instances of cooperation to advance interests in those areas, while also using them to explore other potential areas of alignment and deepen trust with counterparts.
Other recommendations include fostering greater diversification.
“Greater diversification not only strengthens resilience; it could also promote a more inclusive trading system and economy. The connection between trade and wealth creation is strong: diversification could enable more countries to participate more fully,” the report notes.
Read the full report here.