The emerging new global order is marked by intense competition leading to increasingly polarized societies in many countries. Unprecedented technological advances, geopolitical and geo-economic trigger points, and the reconfiguration of global supply chains mark this era. Together, they are creating contested and constricted norms as major powers reshape global influence, regional stability, and erode trust. Geopolitical intelligence is at the heart of corporate decision-making as companies navigate a BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear, and incomprehensible) landscape marked by intensifying risk and complex dynamics. As global fluidity increases, the major stakeholders- businesses, societies, and governments need to find common solutions through the mechanics of cooperation internationally, regionally, and locally.
The Global Co-operation Barometer is an assessment tool developed by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company. The barometer tracks international cooperation through 41 indicators across five interrelated pillars: trade & capital, innovation and technology, climate & natural capital, health & wellness, and peace and security. The report highlights the shifting paradigm of global cooperation. Although global cooperation is broadly steady, its form is changing, largely driven by environmental challenges.
Some developments reported by the Global Cooperation Barometer suggest that global cooperation is not fading but becoming selective. Since 2019, traditional multilateral mechanisms and peacekeeping activity have weakened; health and wellness cooperation has remained steady, but development assistance has fallen sharply. Trade and capital cooperation have flattened, while commercial links are shifting towards more geopolitically aligned partners; the average geopolitical distance of global goods trade fell by about 7% between 2017 and 2024.
Cooperation will look different in the emerging global order. International cooperation will be more bespoke, smaller, purpose-based, and shaped by strategic interests and geopolitical threats. Trade and investment will be organized through trusted partnerships, friend-shoring, and regional arrangements, and ‘coalitions of the willing’ will gain importance, especially in critical sectors. Cooperation will look less universal, with a decline in multilateral consensus and an increase in plurilateral and regional digital trade agreements. However, it can still deliver progress on selected shared priorities, provided these arrangements remain sufficiently open, interoperable and inclusive. Bilateral deals, regional trade agreements and sector-specific arrangements are therefore becoming instruments of resilience and strategic alignment, especially around technology, critical minerals, energy, food, pharmaceuticals and digital trade.
In times of immense uncertainty and volatility, the Global Cooperation Barometer offers a way for businesses and governments to track the nuances of global cooperation. Although it is evolving, it is resilient amid geopolitical and economic headwinds. Cooperation is not a luxury; it is a necessity. A longitudinal, fact-based view of cooperation shows that cross-border private investment has increased relative to the public sector. Global trade has increased, but it is more diversified and geopolitically aligned. Bilateral trade relations have increased over the past few years. Massive cross-border investments in AI technologies are driving capital flows that enable technology cooperation.
A major condition for cooperation is dialogue and the ability to identify overlapping interests among businesses and countries. Compared with earlier decades, the 2026 ranking of the largest companies by market capitalization is heavily skewed toward technology and AI: NVIDIA, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Broadcom, Meta, and Tesla are all technology, platform, semiconductor, cloud, AI, or technology-enabled firms. This reflects the speed of change and the expectation that digital capacity will shape future growth. The composition of trade is changing; digitally deliverable products grew by 10% in 2025, and digitally deliverable services accounted for 56% of global services exports in 2024.
2026 growth projections are low against the backdrop of tariffs, policy unpredictability and geopolitical disruptions. Digital trade is not evenly distributed: developed economies supplied roughly three-quarters of digitally deliverable exports in 2025, and only 16% of services exports from least-developed countries were digitally delivered, compared with 61% in developed economies. The implication is not that technology has replaced trade; it is that technology is becoming the strategic engine of growth, while trade is being reorganized around digital services.
In the new economic order, the future belongs not to those who assume old multilateral models will automatically revive but to those who can create practical coalitions around shared risks. With fragmented societies and fractured politics, the mindset and capacity to cooperate will be a strategic source of resilience, competitiveness and shared progress.
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