Table of Contents
- Why Is International Cooperation Critical for Scaling AI and Achieving Net Zero Goals?
- Recommendation
- Take-Aways
- Summary
- In the current global landscape, cooperation between nations and regions is fragile and increasingly strained.
- Increasing trade and investment are essential to securing global prosperity and climate security.
- Global cooperation can address geopolitical risks, end military conflicts, and advance human rights.
- About the Authors
Why Is International Cooperation Critical for Scaling AI and Achieving Net Zero Goals?
Navigate the complexities of international collaboration with insights from the Global Cooperation Barometer 2025. Discover how strengthening trade, technology, and security partnerships can unlock trillions in value and stabilize a fragile global landscape.
Ready to future-proof your strategy against global instability? Continue reading to understand the five critical areas where renewed cooperation can drive immediate growth and resilience.
Recommendation
Amid political, economic, social, climate, and security disruptions and uncertainty, nations are reassessing their cooperative and competitive postures toward other countries and regions. The World Economic Forum’s Second Annual Global Cooperation Barometer examines the current state of international collaboration across five areas: financial flows, technology, environment, health and wellness, and security. This robust analysis offers valuable insights for investors, executives, and government officials.
Take-Aways
- In the current global landscape, cooperation between nations and regions is fragile and increasingly strained.
- Increasing trade and investment are essential to securing global prosperity and climate security.
- Global cooperation can address geopolitical risks, end military conflicts, and advance human rights.
Summary
In the current global landscape, cooperation between nations and regions is fragile and increasingly strained.
In 2025, global cooperation between nations and regions is under pressure. Chief among the reasons for the pressure are ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, as well as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and with China. In addition to these geopolitical risks, experts forecast slowing international economic growth, even as the financial costs of climate change steadily increase.
“The flatlining of cooperation comes as the world is entering a state of greater instability caused by high levels of electoral discontent and geopolitical rivalry.”
Against this backdrop, sovereign leaders must foster enhanced levels of cooperation to solve the pressing problems of economic, political, and social insecurity. Greater collaboration can help unlock the historic opportunity presented by generative AI, which experts believe could add some $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in global value across sectors. Business and political leaders should focus on five crucial areas of cooperation: “trade and capital flows, innovation and technology, climate and natural capital, health and wellness, and peace and security.”
Increasing trade and investment are essential to securing global prosperity and climate security.
For global leaders, improving cooperation begins with cultivating a stronger and more integrated international trade and capital flow ecosystem. The use of tariffs and levies impedes global GDP growth, as do capital restrictions and obstacles to foreign direct investment. Streamlining trade should be a priority, particularly through a modern digital infrastructure. Accomplishing trade digitization has the potential to expand G7 trade flows by roughly 43%.
“Well-functioning global cooperation in the form of trade and capital flow is a crucial requirement for the invention and deployment of new technologies.”
In terms of innovation and technology, greater fragmentation in supply chains is a growing worry. A prime focus should be on raising total factor productivity (TFP), which gauges the level of innovation involved in generating GDP, through significant investments in digital technologies and AI.
As for climate and natural capital, mitigating the effects of climate change is a top priority, to be accomplished through the pursuit of net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. Yet GHG emissions have actually increased from levels set in 2023, and capital commitments to climate change remain far below the funding needed to achieve net zero goals.
Leaders should focus on three initiatives to achieve health and wellness goals: 1) deliver innovative medical care and health care solutions to emerging economies; 2) advance mRNA technology to combat diseases such as cancer; and 3) strengthen cooperation to prevent and proactively manage disease outbreaks through the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.
Global cooperation can address geopolitical risks, end military conflicts, and advance human rights.
To ensure peace and security, global institutions, led by the United Nations, must take a more prominent role in ending violent conflicts, negotiating peace accords, and providing humanitarian aid to distressed regions. Experts indicate that the number of conflict refugees reached 122 million in 2024.
“Leaders will need to take steps that deliver immediate results to populations who are waiting for answers while putting the world on course towards achieving collective goals.”
Overall, global policymakers can make significant strides in crafting sovereign and regional collaboration by being flexible in how they approach opportunities to foster relationships. They should leverage micro wins to advance macro goals, and apply unconventional thinking to long-standing frameworks and traditional geopolitical positioning. Businesses grappling with global operations should consider “structural segmentation” that includes reshoring and localizing activities to manage risks.
About the Authors
The World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company collaborated on this report.