Davos 2025: Global co-operation on peace and security slumps to decade low

World Economic Forum and McKinsey report finds that after trending positively for years, overall co-operation has stagnated - with joint action on climate a rare green shoot

Spiralling conflicts and a lack of international leadership will feature at this month's World Economic Forum event in Davos. Photo: Pascal Bitz / World Economic Forum

Global co-operation to address peace and security has nosedived in the past decade, a new report says, as many governments struggle to see eye-to-eye on how to resolve the greatest conflicts we face.

From Ukraine to Sudan and the wars in the Middle East, there has been a lack of collaboration and few peaceful outcomes, according to a study released before the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos.

Co-operation on peace and security was lower than any point since 2012, with 122 million people displaced, the second edition of the Global Cooperation Barometer released by the forum and McKinsey found.

That dragged down the overall co-operation barometer to stagnate after trending positively for a decade and surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Along with peace and security, it also looks at four other pillars: trade and capital, innovation and technology, climate and natural capital, and health and wellness.

Børge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum, said the barometer was published at a moment of “great global instability and at a time when many new governments are developing agendas for the year, and their terms, ahead”.

With high levels of electoral discontent and geopolitical rivalry, co-operation is “essential to address crucial economic, environmental and technological challenges”.

Joint work on climate and natural capital was a rare green shoot in the report, although its authors said urgent action is needed in the push towards net-zero targets.

“We've reduced the emissions intensity of GDP, largely driven by upticks in EV [electric vehicle] deployment and renewable energy. And that's something to celebrate,” said Bob Sternfels, global managing partner at McKinsey & Company, on a media call.

“But there's also the recognition that less than 10 per cent of the low emissions technologies required to hit net zero by 2050 have been deployed.”

Despite global security crises, the new findings suggest collaboration continues in important areas such as vaccine distribution, scientific research and renewable energy development – offering models for co-operation.

The report said that although there is geopolitical competition for frontier technologies such as semiconductors, “overall global co-operation on technology and innovation advanced in 2023, in part due to digitisation of the global economy”.

There has been a strong increase in the supply of critical minerals, and a related drop in the price of lithium batteries, to the benefit of manufacturers and consumers of goods such as electric cars. But the rapid disruption from artificial intelligence is reshaping the global landscape, raising the prospect of an “AI arms race”.

On the global economy, Mr Sternfels said “that foreign direct investment actually increased and it grew faster than GDP in 2023. And you might say that's a good thing”.

But co-operation on cross-border research and development, including pharmaceutical R&D, was down 15 per cent, which he said should serve as a warning sign.

“You further see the lack of co-operation around pandemics,” he said. “You start to get worried about a future aspect of how do we innovate around co-operation and health and wellness? And we call out a risk there.”

Mr Sternfels also spoke of a “lack of multilateral institutions being effective to navigate these”. In the past year, the UN and its agencies have been tested by a hostile Israel and United States. The Israeli campaign to defund UNRWA left the agency unable to function properly, while there have been Israeli attacks on UN aid convoys. UN agencies and staff have also been denied access, attacked and killed in conflict areas.

Complex political entanglements aside, governments should be able to work together on clear-cut problems, Mr Brende said.

“Cyber crime cost the world $2 trillion a year. There should be enough common interest to collaborate – even in a competitive world.”

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the US President on the eve of the Davos forum on January 20 and his second term is expected to loom large over debates throughout the week-long event.