Foreword The second edition of the Global Cooperation Barometer comes amid unsettled political and geopolitical climates. Political shockwaves cut across many continents this past year – a “super year” of elections in which half the world’s population had the opportunity to go to the polls.1 For the first time, every governing party facing an election in a developed economy lost vote share.2 These expressions of electorate disapproval are due, in large measure, to forces that have been building for over a decade and were intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. A sense of insecurity – financial or personal – has increased alongside feelings that the “system” has not been working. People around the world are looking for solutions while expressing a desire for change to the mechanisms meant to deliver results. At the same time, the global order that held for the first 30 years after the end of the Cold War has passed. Today, competition and conflict are rising, and countries are re-examining their place in the world. Alongside geopolitical upheaval, technological change is also under way. The rapid development and uptake of frontier technologies such as generative artificial intelligence is poised to reshape economies and societies. While the geopolitical dial won’t, and shouldn’t, turn back to the order of the past, it must turn more towards cooperation. Advancing global health, prosperity and resilience cannot be done by single nations alone. Resolving ongoing security challenges can only happen through multilateral and multistakeholder processes. Unlocking the benefits of technological innovations in an equitable way while ensuring necessary guardrails are in place to mitigate risks will require some form of coordination. As a result, leaders will need new mechanisms for working together on key priorities, even as they disagree on others. The past several years have shown this balance is possible. Foreign investment announcements are increasing across the world and data and intellectual property (IP) are flowing between countries in ever greater quantities. Meanwhile, global commitments to climate- and resilience-linked finance continue to grow. It is against this backdrop that the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company have released this second edition of the Global Cooperation Barometer with a focus on where cooperation stands today and what it can look like in the new technological age. The inaugural 2024 report stated its intentions: to serve as a tool for leaders to better understand the contours of cooperation broadly and along five pillars – trade and capital flows, innovation and technology, climate and natural capital, health and wellness, and peace and security. In its second year, the barometer draws on new data from the 41 indicators to offer an updated picture of the state of cooperation today: overall cooperation has been steady, with some significant drops that are offset by other gains. The hope is that by measuring the state of cooperation, the barometer can track trends and identify the potential for new areas of cooperation and help plot a path forward.Børge Brende President and Chief Executive Officer, World Economic ForumBob Sternfels Global Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 Second Edition January 2025 The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 Second Edition 3