The Barometer measures whether the world is cooperating more or less, and this year its answer is steady but splitting. Overall cooperation held roughly level, yet the forms tied to multilateral institutions weakened most while smaller, interest-based coalitions grew. For the SDGs, which lean on exactly the multilateral machinery that is fraying, a flat headline hides a harder story underneath.
The headline
The 2026 index found overall cooperation largely unchanged from prior years, with most cooperation metrics still above their 2019 level, but its composition is shifting. Metrics tied to multilateralism fell furthest, while flexible arrangements in data flows, services trade and select capital flows kept growing. Innovation and technology and climate and natural capital rose; trade and capital and health and wellness flattened; peace and security kept falling, with every tracked metric below pre-pandemic levels. The authors describe cooperation that is more bespoke and interest-based, but still present.
The numbers
- Five pillars, 41 metrics. The index aggregates 41 indicators over 2012–2024, indexed so that 2020 equals 1.
- Multilateralism down more than 20%. By the end of 2024, peacekeeping activity, multilateral resolutions and health aid had each dropped by more than 20% since 2019.
- Aid falling. In 2024 alone foreign aid dropped by 11%, a trend the report says worsened in 2025.
- Record displacement. By the end of 2024 the number of forcibly displaced people reached a record 123 million globally.
- Bandwidth up fourfold. International bandwidth is now four times larger than before the pandemic, evidence of continued innovation and technology flows.
- Clean-tech concentration. China accounted for two-thirds of additions of solar, wind and electric vehicles as clean-technology deployment hit record levels in mid-2025.
- The evidence base. Findings draw on 41 quantitative metrics plus surveys of 799 executives across 81 economies and 171 global-council experts.
The counting angle
The Barometer is itself a measurement exercise, and it says so plainly: it draws inspiration from the Sustainable Development Goals, then builds its own 41-metric index because cooperation has no agreed scorecard. Two design choices shape what it can see. It counts only manifested cooperation, real flows of goods, capital, talent and knowledge, and excludes “on paper” commitments; and it separates action metrics from outcome metrics like life expectancy that many other forces also move. It also runs on a lag, using 2024 as the most recent comprehensive year, topped up with partial 2025 data. The risk of any single index is that an equal-weighted average of 41 disparate metrics can report calm while the parts diverge sharply.
Watch & read
- The Global Cooperation Barometer 2026, the full report (World Economic Forum & McKinsey & Company).
- Global Risks Report 2026, the WEF companion on the threats leaders rank highest.
Figures are as reported by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company. The index is an independent analytical construct, not an official statistic, and metrics are indexed to a 2020 base.