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Report Home

  • Top 10 Trends of 2015
    • 1. Deepening income inequality
    • 2. Persistent jobless growth
    • 3. Lack of leadership
    • 4. Rising geostrategic competition
    • 5. Weakening of representative democracy
    • 6. Rising pollution in the developing world
    • 7. Increasing occurrence of severe weather events
    • 8. Intensifying nationalism
    • 9. Increasing water stress
    • 10. Growing importance of health in the economy
    • Immigration in focus: an overlooked trend?
  • Regional Challenges
    • Regional Challenges: Middle-East & North Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Europe
    • Regional Challenges: Asia
    • Regional Challenges: North America
    • Regional Challenges: Sub-Saharan Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Latin America
    • Tension points: Assessing the state of geopolitics
  • Global leadership and governance
    • A call to lead: the essential qualities for stronger leadership
    • Global Leadership Index
    • New governance architecture: strategies to change the way we lead
    • LGBT: moving towards equality
  • Future Agenda
    • Synthetic biology: Designing our existence?
    • Brain-computer interaction: Transforming our networked future?
    • Deep sea mining: The new resource frontier?
    • Emerging nuclear powers: A safe path to energy security?
    • The evolution of monetary policy: A new era for central banks?
    • Mapping the future: The future of education
    • Mapping the future: The future of work
    • Mapping the future: The future of the internet
  • About this report
    • Welcome
    • Introduction
    • Making the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015
    • Acknowledgements
  • Browse by Topic
    • Africa
    • Asia-Pacific
    • Brain Research
    • Climate Change
    • Corruption
    • Decarbonizing Energy
    • Economics and Finance
    • Economies
    • Education
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Employment, Skills and Human Capital
    • Environment and Sustainability
    • Europe and Eurasia
    • Future of Government
    • Global Economic Imbalances
    • Global Financial System
    • Global Governance
    • Global Health and Healthcare
    • Global Issues
    • Human Rights
    • Industries
    • Internet Governance
    • Latin America
    • Middle East and North Africa
    • Migration
    • North America
    • Nuclear Security
    • Oceans
    • Science and Technology
    • Security and Governance
    • Society and Human Development
    • Water
  • Top 10 Infographics
  • Download as PDF
  • Download Chinese language version as PDF
Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015   Welcome
Home
Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015   Welcome
Home
Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 Home
  • Report Home
  • Top 10 Trends of 2015
    • 1. Deepening income inequality
    • 2. Persistent jobless growth
    • 3. Lack of leadership
    • 4. Rising geostrategic competition
    • 5. Weakening of representative democracy
    • 6. Rising pollution in the developing world
    • 7. Increasing occurrence of severe weather events
    • 8. Intensifying nationalism
    • 9. Increasing water stress
    • 10. Growing importance of health in the economy
    • Immigration in focus: an overlooked trend?
  • Regional Challenges
    • Regional Challenges: Middle-East & North Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Europe
    • Regional Challenges: Asia
    • Regional Challenges: North America
    • Regional Challenges: Sub-Saharan Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Latin America
    • Tension points: Assessing the state of geopolitics
  • Global leadership and governance
    • A call to lead: the essential qualities for stronger leadership
    • Global Leadership Index
    • New governance architecture: strategies to change the way we lead
    • LGBT: moving towards equality
  • Future Agenda
    • Synthetic biology: Designing our existence?
    • Brain-computer interaction: Transforming our networked future?
    • Deep sea mining: The new resource frontier?
    • Emerging nuclear powers: A safe path to energy security?
    • The evolution of monetary policy: A new era for central banks?
    • Mapping the future: The future of education
    • Mapping the future: The future of work
    • Mapping the future: The future of the internet
  • About this report
    • Welcome
    • Introduction
    • Making the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015
    • Acknowledgements
  • Browse by Topic
    • Africa
    • Asia-Pacific
    • Brain Research
    • Climate Change
    • Corruption
    • Decarbonizing Energy
    • Economics and Finance
    • Economies
    • Education
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Employment, Skills and Human Capital
    • Environment and Sustainability
    • Europe and Eurasia
    • Future of Government
    • Global Economic Imbalances
    • Global Financial System
    • Global Governance
    • Global Health and Healthcare
    • Global Issues
    • Human Rights
    • Industries
    • Internet Governance
    • Latin America
    • Middle East and North Africa
    • Migration
    • North America
    • Nuclear Security
    • Oceans
    • Science and Technology
    • Security and Governance
    • Society and Human Development
    • Water
  • Top 10 Infographics
  • Download as PDF
  • Download Chinese language version as PDF
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Welcome from Klaus Schwab | Introduction by Martina Larkin | Making the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 | Acknowledgements

Welcome

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Klaus Schwab

Founder and
Executive Chairman,
World Economic Forum

Klaus Schwab

Founder and
Executive Chairman,
World Economic Forum

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While the global financial crisis appears to have subsided, now income inequality looms large.

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While the global financial crisis appears to have subsided, now income inequality looms large.

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Never before has the need to find new solutions to shared problems been so clear.

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Never before has the need to find new solutions to shared problems been so clear.

Klaus Schwab
Founder and Executive Chairman,
World Economic Forum 

The nature of the challenges we face today is increasingly complex. In the 12 months since we launched last year’s Outlook on the Global Agenda, the world has continued to undergo a series of transformational shifts.

While the global financial crisis and its after-effects appear to have subsided, the magnitude of other significant global issues continues to increase in scale and scope, such as jobless growth and income inequality. Particularly in developing economies, periods of strong growth have helped close the wealth gap between countries, but severe imbalances persist. In the realm of international politics, we have seen terrorist forces – often appearing without warning – continue to impede progress, threatening stability, peace and prosperity. Innovations in technology are accelerating. Our natural environment remains seriously threatened. 

In short, it is increasingly difficult to effectively design policy and drive coherent decision-making. Our fast-moving, interconnected world requires policy-makers to respond quickly to global challenges and adopt an integrated approach when choosing solutions.

It is this context of complexity and constant change that led the World Economic Forum to create the Network of Global Agenda Councils in 2008. Today’s challenges, which are global in scope, heavily interlinked in nature and critical in urgency, require a system by which we can promote greater understanding and stronger collaboration.

Our 80 Global Agenda Councils, coupled with six Meta-Councils on wider, more encompassing issues, are each formed from a collection of experts from around the world. These experts are renowned not only for their thought leadership, but also for their desire to find solutions that will improve the state of the world.

The Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 reflects the thought leadership of the world’s foremost intelligence network – a community of over 1,500 global experts. This report offers a comprehensive overview of the world today, as well as an analysis of how these experts expect it to develop in the coming 12-18 months. It also outlines the nature of global trends, regional challenges, global leadership and governance, as well as the emerging issues that should be on the agendas of global leaders. In the spirit of the Forum, we have offered solutions to these issues that have been developed by members of the Global Agenda Councils.

The Outlook 2015 will be launched on the occasion of the Summit on the Global Agenda, which brings together the community of Global Agenda Councils and is held in Dubai from 9-11 November 2014 in partnership with the Government of the United Arab Emirates. We hope that this year’s Outlook provides valuable insights to better understand the important global issues of our time in support of our common efforts to improve the state of the world.

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