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Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014

  • About this report
    • Introduction by Klaus Schwab
    • Welcome from Martina Gmür
    • Preface by Drew Gilpin Faust
    • Making the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014
  • Top 10 trends of 2014
    • Introduction
    • 1. Rising societal tensions in the Middle East and North Africa
    • 2. Widening income disparities
    • 3. Persistent structural unemployment
    • 4. Intensifying cyber threats
    • 5. Inaction on climate change
    • 6. Diminishing confidence in economic policies
    • 7. A lack of values in leadership
    • 8. The expanding middle class in Asia
    • 9. The growing importance of megacities
    • 10. The rapid spread of misinformation online
    • In focus: The trends we need to know more about
  • Regional challenges
    • Donald Kaberuka: The cautious optimist
    • Building for the better: tackling inequality, unemployment and corruption
  • Networked thinking
    • Values
    • Employment
    • Interconnectivity, visualised
    • Interactive council map
  • Future agenda
    • The new space race
    • Mapping the future: The technologies changing our lives
    • The future of biotechnology
    • The future of shale gas
    • The future of democracy
    • The future of surveillance
    • The future of the Arctic
    • The future of multinationals
  • Browse by topic
    • Economics and Growth
    • Education
    • Energy
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Environment
    • Finance
    • Geopolitics
    • Governance
    • Health and Well-being
    • Hyperconnectivity
    • Innovation
    • Infrastructure
    • Risk
    • Sustainability
    • Society
    • Technology
    • Unemployment
    • Youth
  • Download a PDF version of this report
  • Download a calendar of 2014’s most significant events
Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014 Home
  • Report Home
  • About this report
    • Introduction by Klaus Schwab
    • Welcome from Martina Gmür
    • Preface by Drew Gilpin Faust
    • Making the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014
  • Top 10 trends of 2014
    • Introduction
    • 1. Rising societal tensions in the Middle East and North Africa
    • 2. Widening income disparities
    • 3. Persistent structural unemployment
    • 4. Intensifying cyber threats
    • 5. Inaction on climate change
    • 6. Diminishing confidence in economic policies
    • 7. A lack of values in leadership
    • 8. The expanding middle class in Asia
    • 9. The growing importance of megacities
    • 10. The rapid spread of misinformation online
    • In focus: The trends we need to know more about
  • Regional challenges
    • Donald Kaberuka: The cautious optimist
    • Building for the better: tackling inequality, unemployment and corruption
  • Networked thinking
    • Values
    • Employment
    • Interconnectivity, visualised
    • Interactive council map
  • Future agenda
    • The new space race
    • Mapping the future: The technologies changing our lives
    • The future of biotechnology
    • The future of shale gas
    • The future of democracy
    • The future of surveillance
    • The future of the Arctic
    • The future of multinationals
  • Browse by topic
    • Economics and Growth
    • Education
    • Energy
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Environment
    • Finance
    • Geopolitics
    • Governance
    • Health and Well-being
    • Hyperconnectivity
    • Innovation
    • Infrastructure
    • Risk
    • Sustainability
    • Society
    • Technology
    • Unemployment
    • Youth
  • Download a PDF version of this report
  • Download a calendar of 2014’s most significant events

Welcome from Martina Gmür

 

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As the year draws to a close, many organisations unveil their predictions for the year ahead. But the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014 does something a little different.

We harnessed the insights of our Network of Global Agenda Councils to understand what the next 12 months will bring – but we haven’t simply asked our contributors to gaze into their crystal balls.

Instead, we partnered with the Saïd Business School at Oxford University to redesign our Survey on the Global Agenda and with Pew Research Center to identify the most pressing issues of the year ahead. Using this tool, we collected insights from more than 1,500 global experts across business, government, academia and civil society. The majority of respondents came from within the Network, but we also wanted to include the perspective of the world’s youth, so for the first time we also asked the Global Shapers and Young Global Leaders – young people who are transforming today’s world – to participate.

Using this data, we selected the most interesting themes and contextualised them with commentary from some of our community’s brightest minds. In this report, we look at the 10 biggest trends for the year to come; we evaluate how they will play out globally and in different regions; we examine the new developments that are finding a place in the global agenda; and we take a look at how new technological advances will change our world.

We hope you will find the results of our research compelling and thought-provoking. The outlook for 2014 is complex. Our experts overwhelmingly agreed that rising societal tensions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will be the defining trend of 2014, alongside increasing inequality and unemployment.

Respondents also showed their dissatisfaction with the state of global co-operation on major challenges such as climate change, youth unemployment and poverty. But on a brighter note, they were optimistic about the future and about mankind’s ability to address emerging issues in biotechnology, surveillance, energy security and a host of other issues.

The Outlook owes its success to the exceptional calibre and creativity of the Global Agenda Council Members, to whom we would like to extend our most sincere appreciation.

Martina Gmür
Head of the Network of Global Agenda Councils

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