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The World Economic Forum’s Risk Response Network or RRN has come out with Global Risk Report 2012 in January 11 of this year, which can be viewed and downloaded on their website http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2012/#.

The report discusses global risks using the following methodology:

a)  Identify global risks, which are risks that are global in geographic scope, cross-industry relevance, uncertainty as to how and when they will occur, and high levels of economic and/or social impact.

b)  Categorize the global risks into five Risk Categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological.

c)  For each Risk Category, rank each risk according to likelihood and severity.

d)  Using the ranking, identify the risks of greatest systemic importance as the Centers of Gravity for each of each Risk Category.

e)  Identify Critical Connectors which are risks that are connected to the multiple Centers of Gravity, and thus link all global risks into one coherent system.

The result is a map which shows the ecology of global risks and how they are all interrelated.

The report also contains three case studies which focus on special categories of risk, and one special report on the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.

Case 1:   The Seeds of Dystopia

This case explores the risks due to the combination of fiscal imbalances and demographic trends.

Case 2:   How Safe are Our Safeguards?

This case explores the risk of the unexpected negative consequences of regulations.

Case 3:   The Dark Side of Connectivity

This case explores the critical systems failures that could occur because of problems with cyber security of the World Wide Web.

Special Report–The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011

This special report traces the unforeseen consequences of the earthquake as they rippled through Complex Global Systems.

The purpose for the report discussing these global risks is to develop strategies to mitigate them.   I will be going through the report in several blog posts to discuss the methodologies, the findings, and the recommendations of this report.

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