 Hello everyone, welcome to the launch of the global cooperation barometer, a new tool and an accompanying report from the World Economic Forum prepared in partnership with McKinsey and Company. The release of the barometer comes a week ahead of the forum's annual meeting and it's meant to inform conversations that will be taking place in Davos. But more importantly, it's meant to help stakeholders around the world in the public and the private sectors navigate what is a complex and uncertain moment. The global cooperation barometer measures the state of global cooperation across five dimensions, or pillars, one trade and capital flows, two innovation and technology, three climate and natural capital, four health and wellness, and fifth peace and security. Now, we're going to hear all about the results in a minute, but maybe just the one that I will try to give away, because we aggregate all of the findings into one global measurement. The story that the barometer tells us is surprising in some ways. It points to higher levels of cooperation, or perhaps more opportunity for cooperation than we might have expected in today's challenging context. I'm joined in Geneva today by Berger Brenda, the president of the World Economic Forum and by Bob Sternfeld's global managing partner of McKinsey who's joining us from Shanghai. Welcome Berger and welcome Bob. Thank you for joining us here. Berger, first let me turn to you and let's talk about the why. You opened the report by saying that the barometer is being released at a time when the bedrock of what was once a stable global system is shifting underfoot. What do you mean by this and why do you think developing a tool like this can help? So firstly, what we are pleased with is that the barometer is quite nuanced. Until 2020, global cooperation was pretty stable. It is true that it has declined since 2020, I think around 2%. But in some areas we even seen that global cooperation has been quite resilient. Environment, climate, also technology and science. And what has not been going so well is the cooperation related to the geopolitics. Peace is not doing so well and since 2016 we have seen a decline in the cooperation here. And since 2020 unfortunately we've seen this plummeting on peace and reconciliation and I think we know why. And this is also a result of what we have seen and coming back to your question about the order. The order we had since the Cold War was one with strong rules and also complying with the UN Charter and international law. That is more or no challenge. So we are in a way between orders. So we had one order. We don't know what the new order is. Hopefully it will not be going back to the jungle but we can build on the strengths of the old order. But it of course also has to change since there are emerging economies. We have the global south and we have to adjust. But on the question of peace and security unfortunately we have seen some deterioration. For example, if you compare the numbers from 2010 or 2012 with today when it comes to displace people, refugees and internal displace has gone from 40 million people up to 110 million people being displaced. If you look at for example cyber attacks they have increased by four fold since 2010. And the global price for that annual is between 1 to 2 trillion US dollars. And we also have seen that the conflicts we are faced with today are double as deadly as the conflicts in 2010. But overall when we look at it it is clear that we have a situation where in many areas the cooperation has been upholding, has been pretty resilient but in other areas it is a pretty fragile. On for example the economy it is challenging. The global growth is no lower than the trend growth the last 20 years but it is picking up in 2025. So it's a nuanced question, it's a nuanced picture and I think it's important then to say that there are areas where we know really need to corporate because these are challenges that are common, they are transplundering. So we cannot solve it nation by nation but we have to come together. Thank you Berge. One of the surprising things for me is how resilient cooperation does appear to be across those five pillars in some cases. I think three of them continue to show quite a lot of resilience whereas two have a more mixed picture. Bob could you walk us through what's been taking place at a broad level and then also dig into some of those pillars? Sure Sadia and thank you for the opportunity here. And I guess I would start by just expressing my deep appreciation for the collaboration that we've had with the World Economic Forum to develop this barometer. This notion as Berge talked about of getting more granular to measure what is cooperation I think will be a tool that we can use going forward as we see some of the forces that Berge talked about play out and gives us a granular fact base to measure this and so I couldn't be more excited to launch this now. When you do dig into these trends as you mentioned Sadia, I would say well in aggregate what we saw from 2012 to 2020 was a pretty rapid escalation in global cooperation. In 2020 to 2022 you've seen more of a plateau, not a massive decline, a small decline is where you talked about, but more of a plateau. And when you then burrow into the five pillars that you mentioned in the beginning, you see nuance in the story. You do see unambiguous growth in certain areas and we can talk more about this but if you call out climate and natural capital in particular there's been rapid escalation. Innovation and technology grew rapidly until recently when we hit some trade barriers and we can talk more about that. Trade and capital was a story of two cities. One is services rapidly growing. Interestingly goods had started to slow down even before people started talking about a more divided world from 2012 to 2020 and then you saw a rebound after COVID. And then on health and wellness we saw a steady increase of blip over COVID and now a bit of a slowing down and we can talk more about an imperative there. And then finally as Borges mentioned a real decline unfortunately in peace and security and if you ask Sadia maybe my take on why the trend has been this way. Overall the aggregate trend in cooperation has been good for the world. When you look at any metric extension of life expectancy, access to secondary education and interestingly percent of global GDP growth that has come from low and middle income countries which is about two thirds of global GDP growth has come from this. Cooperation plays a big part in this. So why have we seen increasing cooperation? Quite frankly because it's been good for us. And now to Borges point I think we're at an inflection point that would say what is the way forward here? What's it going to be? So let me pick up on that point though the way forward and your recommendations as to how to maintain some level of cooperation even in the midst of the competition that we see, the fractures that we see. Could you talk more about that Borges? What does geopolitical competition, cooperation mean? And how do you marry between cooperation and competition? So it is true that the big nations of the world to put it out there, G2, US and China are competing. They're competing when it comes to AI, the new technologies. But at the same time they're also able to find common solutions. Look at the run up to COP28 on climate and in Dubai. Without the understanding between China and the US, if they didn't break that impulse, this would not be a successful outcome. And I think both of the nations understand that the cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of action and that's why they want to cooperate. So I think it's important now to identify the areas where there is a need to cooperate and then I think it's possible. But there are other areas where there will be a competition. It is like in the private sector companies do compete, but in some areas they also cooperate because it makes sense. And as Bob also was alluding to, we also have to look at the results. Since 1990 we doubled the global GDP and the driver behind it, the engine of growth was trade. Trade increased four folds and drove that. And at the same time in the last 30 years we have seen extreme poverty gone down from 40% of the global population to 12%. And we added 2 billion people on top of it. So a cooperation is also incredibly important. Most of the present and most serious present global challenges do travel without the passport. Big cyber, big potential pandemics, big climate change. So each nation can of course do its best, but it's only through cooperation you can solve it. And that's why I think this barometer that we developed with McKinsey is critical in the sense that we can look at the development every year and we can measure it. It is no happening against a very serious geopolitical and geoeconomic backdrop. But I think the numbers show that we are also in a situation where there is a lot of cooperation still going on. And maybe Berge, I can ask you one follow up because one of those bright spots is around climate and nature. And I think we've just seen some of those recent developments and how nations have come together to cooperate with each other. Maybe if you could share a bit more about that and what are some of the lessons that could perhaps be applied in other areas? I think that nations do see that climate change is nothing related to the next generation only. It is real and it's happening here and that's why we have to take the measures. And I also have to compliment global business and what we have seen also in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow where we at the World Economic Forum collaborated with the State Department and Secretary Kerry and before this alliance first mover coalition where we have almost 100 companies of the big companies in the world now that has come together and said that we commit to use our purchasing power to create a green demand. And this is what is needed also in other areas. So what I think we will see in the fragmented world and also a fractured world is in some areas you also see more cooperation in coalitions where they go forward. We see it also on the trade side as Bob mentioned with services. Services are now growing much faster than traditional goods. And here there are being formed plural laterals where countries ready to form trade agreements come together and say we start. And if you want to follow please follow. And if you could do this also through the WTO multilateral umbrella after some time that would be good. But what we saw in the post cold world war where everything was done in a multi or not everything but more was done in a multilateral way. I think now it will be more in a coalition way. Thank you. Thank you. Bob picking up a similar point. I mean looking to the private sector. One point that you make in the report is that cooperation breeds resilience and yet according to some research as much as 72% of organizations are looking to resure or near shore some of their production closer to the sources of demand. I mean what's your thinking on this. What's your outlook and what are you seeing from the various global businesses that you work with. I think it's a great question and you know I think this notion of a related topic of resilience is near and dear to both of our hearts. And I also take great pride in the collaboration that we've had in the resilience consortium with the World Economic Forum. That has put some data in place about the value of the world being more resilient not only in the private sector public sector and public and private cooperation. And the headline is if we don't think in a resilient way it can cost us up to 8% of GDP and if we do it could add up to 15% of GDP. So this notion of resilience matters. When you then start to think about cooperation and how does this link to resilience and the notion you talked about of maybe reimagining supply chains. At least what we're seeing is a couple things. One is the notion that the world is more connected than it's ever been. Our cooperation index highlights this. But some other data that shows the inner linking of GDP up to up to 40% of GDP depends on cross border flows. We've done some work in our global institute that shows no region is an island. Every region is dependent on a critical commodity up to 25%. So everyone's interconnected. And the speed of interconnection is you take Borges broader definition is escalating the further you move away from physical flows. So you go physical flows services actually grows much faster than physical flows and data grows 10 times faster than that. So you have a hyper interconnected world. But I think one of the things that unfortunately the last couple of years showed us with the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, several other crises around the world is that we're not that we weren't that resilient. We weren't that resilient and resilient without resiliency, we can have real setbacks in terms of inclusive growth around the world, let alone sustainable growth around the world. And so when I actually see this reimagining, what I see is actually less a reduction in cooperation and more a diversification type of thinking. And when you look at, for example, the amount of FDI that's now being spent in the global south for manufacturing and you see places like Vietnam, Indonesia, Morocco, Mexico, Poland. You start to see supply chains being reimagined in a more diversified way that quite frankly might drive increased cooperation because there'll be more players involved, more resiliency, and potentially more inclusive growth, because this will drive investment in countries that weren't disproportionately invested in previously. And so I do wonder if Sadia maybe the notion is not a reduction in cooperation, but it's actually an enhancement of diversification. Thank you. Thank you. Really helpful. So we have an online audience, but we also have a number of members of the media, many of whom will be joining us next week in Davos. And quite a few have sent us questions through in advance. I have to warn you that some of these are tough questions. And I'd like to have both those questions put to both of you and use our remaining time to run through some of these. We have a question from Ravi Agarwal, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy, and maybe first to you, Berge. He says, the report suggests that global cooperation has been much more resilient than one imagines when following the news. If the barometer is accurate, why is there such a disconnect between perception and reality? And then how do we bridge that gap? I think the reality is that peace and conflict gets a lot of attention. And as I said also at the start, peace and security has plummeted the last two years. We're much more resilient in the other areas. And of course there's a war in Ukraine, a Gaza war, and there's also other insecurities in Ethiopia and Sudan. There's also a lot of refugees and displaced people that rightly so get a lot of attention. But as also Bob was mentioning on the trade side, it is for example a much more nuanced picture. And if you're going to have a real economic recovery, we will also need to have a trade recovery. And that picture is looking different. I think the thing with then conflicts and wars is that if that gets out of control, it can of course have immense implications. Look at the Gaza war. It doesn't seem now that the most likely scenario is that it escalates. But if we saw a full-fledged escalation in the whole Middle East region, it would have very damaging implications for the rest of the world because we are so interconnected. So I think we will need to work also on peace and reconciliation moving forward. And in Davos, this will be also one of our key topics, making sure that we still can work together and make sure that conflicts don't get out of control because that will have very, very bad consequences. Thank you. Bob, any views to add to that as to that perception reality gap? Well, I think first off I would just commend again the effort that the World Economic Forum has put in with us to provide facts here. I think actually one of the ways that you move from perception to reality is fact-based. And one of the things that I think the barometer does is to the point Borges raised is it starts to get granular. First, let's define cooperation. Let's break it into the five pillars. And in each five pillar, let's start measuring tactically what this means. And I think facts help as we inform the debate. And so I'm quite keen that this barometer become an enduring asset where we can measure these trends over time. And hopefully that will close a bit of the debate between perception and reality. I think the other aspect of reality is this notion of how interconnected at so many levels we are that often doesn't get a full rendering when the conversation moves particularly into more politicized environments. And I think it's incredibly important to look at the interconnections in a broad way. We've already talked about physical flows, we've talked about services, we've talked about data. We've talked about standards and Borges mentioned some of the advances we've made on the environment. Some of the places that we haven't hit on yet but that are cited in the report are areas of health where I think we saw enormous advancements in cooperation during the pandemic. And those are now at an inflection point. Do we continue the gains that we've had there or do we fall back? Health is a critical aspect for cooperation. And we also haven't looked at cross-border flows, both physical and through remote intellectual property. But when we look at the next couple of decades, we're going to see the largest change in demographics that we've ever seen since the census was being recorded. With the shrinking populations in China and Europe and only India and then Africa growing, this is another form of cooperation that we're going to need to actually get our heads around as we go forward. So I think my take back to this question, Sadia, is granularity matters. And so the way we can actually inform and provide a fact base is by getting more granular and following not cooperation in general. But let's get specific by topic because it could start to yield to some of the solutions that Borges was talking about. The solutions are different if we're talking health or if we're talking, say, intellectual property. I just would like to add here, Sadia, that as Bob also underlines, the landscape in many areas is changing quite a bit. If you look at global trade, we have digital trade that is only 15% of the global trade, but it's growing double as fast as the rest of the trade, together with services. And here we also will need to see in the years to come increased cooperation. But we have seen some tariffs being and obstacles being created, for example, when it comes to data flows. And that, again, can be an area where we can see that global growth can be implicated. At the same time, we also need to look at the bright side. If you look at AI and machine learning, it has a potential of increasing productivity globally by 30% in the next decade. And we know that productivity is prosperity. And if that can be applied in the right way with traffic rules and wind wind solutions, we can see a productivity gain in the next decade that we haven't seen for decades. So I think that's why we also have quite a nuanced barometer. And if you go into this in a granular way, each of the sectors are showing opportunities but also challenges. But that's the only way that this can really be a useful tool also for policymakers and businesses to use it. So hopefully this can be the basis for informed discussions among garments but also on boards of companies. Thank you, Berge. Let me try to, we'll cover one more question. And then I'd like to come back to both of you for one closing statement. Shefali Reiki at Asia News Network, her question is around, you know, if you had to quantify this on a scale of 1 to 10, where are we in global cooperation? And what's your prediction in three years' time? Which one of you would like to go first? Maybe Bob, since you're in it. Yeah, I'll take a shot. Look, I think if you take a time-based perspective to this, which I think is the power of this barometer looking over a decade or more, you know, I would say that we have risen substantially. And if you put it on a 10-point scale, are we at our maximum potential for cooperation? No. And we've seen that there's further opportunity, particularly in places like peace and security as a shining light. But also I think next generation advancements that we could take in health and wellness and innovation and technology. So I would say, you know, if you were kind of doing a 10-point scale, I think we're probably at a seven. But a seven is an all-time historic high with now a question of we're at an inflection point. Are we going to take that next step? And in a more granular way, and maybe in a way that is reimagined, and Borges, you mentioned this in the beginning, we might need new vehicles to do this. The old vehicles maybe that could take us higher than seven. You know, or are we going to actually have a bit of a decline? And we've started to see a bit of plateauing here. I think the choice is up to us. So I'd say seven, but at an inflection point that could go up or down based on how public and private leaders around the world respond. Thank you. And Berge, next week we get a chance to see how public and private sector leaders respond. What's your take on the question? So I think we're doing better in general than we expected on the environment, on the economics, on trade. And also on cooperation related to science and technology. But we're not where we should be. Even on climate, we had a constructive COP28. But last year, climate CO2 emissions, greenhouse gases, increased by 1.5%. While we were supposed to reduce by 7% if we weren't going to be close to meeting the Paris Agreement. So there is a way to go. I would say on the economic side, though, we are seeing more of a soft landing, at least in the largest economy in the world. In the U.S., we're seeing inflation also generally coming down. And even if we don't see as close a cooperation on the economic policies, the monetary and the fiscal globally as we saw after 2007, 2008, I think there is informal cooperation there that is important. As I said, my biggest worry is on peace and security. And this has to be also on the agenda of the World Leaders' meeting in Davos next week. And we have to find solutions on the Ukraine war, on the Gaza war. But there is also other conflicts that can take out the momentum when it comes to global... Can be very harmful for the global cooperation. Thank you very much. Final takeaways from each of you. And I know that we've talked about nuance. We've talked about looking at the data. We've talked about the fairly complex message that comes out of this. And we've talked about the fact that the future is up to us. But maybe just one sentence from each of you as to what you'd want our audience to know about what the global cooperation barometer is telling us. Bob, I'll have you go first and Berge come in at the end. Sure. Look, my one sentence is let's bring the word cooperation into the global debate. We've had many words that are much more divisive. Change in world order, decoupling, French shoring, etc. And what I hope this barometer does in some small way is bring a new word that we're not hearing that much in the dialogue today into the forum, which is cooperation. And I think at a granular level, this notion of cooperation could be a reignition to solve some of the really complicated problems that we're facing and have to face over the course of this decade. Thank you very much and Berge, final word. I hope that even in the fragmented world where we see competition between nations, there are areas where we are willing to also cooperate. If we don't, we'll pay a high price. And I think this barometer shows us also the yield and benefits by cooperating. So let's look at those areas rather than all the areas where we are seeing a less of cooperation taking place. Thank you very much. And to our audience online, the report is now live. Thank you so much.