Foreign affairs

As this report is being published, the world is going through unprecedented times. COVID-19, a term that did not exist when this study was being undertaken over 2019, is now ubiquitous, even though the scale and nature of its global impact will not be known for months to come. As of the second quarter of 2020, a third of the global population has been under a lockdown, with over 200 countries affected by health and economic burdens in diverse ways. Businesses, governments and citizens across the world want to leave the humanitarian and economic crisis behind as soon as possible. To successfully navigate through the COVID crisis and a post-COVID world, a premium will be placed on innovation, the willingness of organizations to disrupt themselves, and active collaboration. In the context of this seismic change, the World Economic Forum Platform for Shaping the Future of Consumption aims to accelerate the responsible transformation of the consumption landscape by enabling consumer well-being, environmental sustainability, inclusive growth models, and trust and transparency among all stakeholders. The mission and transformation goals of the Future of Consumption platform developed three years ago are now more relevant than ever to ensure positive benefits for business and society, across developed and emerging markets. It is an imperative that we advance progress with speed to build a prosperous future for all. In a post-COVID era over the next decade, accelerated shifts in global forces, more than 1 billion first-time consumers and the Fourth Industrial Revolution will continue to change the landscape of consumption in the fast-growth consumer markets of China, India and the ASEAN region. Both business and political leaders will be required to adapt their strategies to the changing needs and demands of connected and empowered consumers. The Future of Consumption in Fast-Growth Consumer Markets, a multi-year project, has focused on the evolution of consumption in emerging markets that comprise more than 40% of the world’s population. Critical foresights on drivers of growth and levers of inclusivity can benefit global leaders as they grapple with similar issues.

The annual cost of conflict is a trillion dollars, according to calculations by the Institute of Economics and Peace 2017. Clearly wars pose various challenges to business operations and profitability, whilst elusive political stability makes investors hesitant. It is therefore not surprising that private sector actors are increasingly intentional in trying to make a contribution to immediate and long-term peace. Private sector activity in support of peace has met with mixed success, which yields lessons about the potential for business to play a role in peace processes. As international organizations and governments test and improve models for collaboration with the private sector, these lessons are useful in deciding what we can do better together. The following report, authored by a team of researchers from the Graduate Institute Geneva tackles this question: Based on previous involvements of the private sector in peacebuilding, which of its activities can contribute positively to peacebuilding and what lessons can be applied to future interventions?

This SIPRI Insights seeks to contribute to the operationalization of nuclear disarmament verification. It explores existing solutions to define a baseline for new arms control and disarmament verification regimes, and considers the requirements for verification under the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Existing solutions might be sufficient to enable several near-term disarmament steps and to lay the foundations for a comprehensive nuclear disarmament verification regime supporting the TPNW. However, more technical work is needed to achieve all the preconditions for a nuclear weapon-free world, particularly on verifying the dismantlement of nuclear weapons. At the same time, a more favourable political context could reduce the extent to which technical challenges are perceived as obstacles to nuclear disarmament. Even in the absence of new disarmament treaties, the operationalization of disarmament verification can begin at a conceptual and discursive level, by adopting a more policy-oriented approach to disarmament verification.

Total global military spending rose for the second consecutive year in 2018, to the highest level since 1988—the first year for which consistent global data is available. World spending is now 76 per cent higher than the post-cold war low in 1998.* World military spending in 2018 represented 2.1 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) or $239 per person. ‘In 2018 the USA and China accounted for half of the world’s military spending,’ says Dr Nan Tian, a researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure (AMEX) programme. ‘The higher level of world military expenditure in 2018 is mainly the result of significant increases in spending by these two countries.’