Draft, not yet released. In stewardship review. Not indexed until the first approved release.

Executive summary

The edition on a few pages: the abstract, the key messages, the headline finding and what each steward reads in it.

6 min read1 figure0 tables14 notesNR-SECTOR-POLICY-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
    1. S.1 Abstract
    2. S.2 Key messages
    3. S.3 Headline finding
    4. S.4 At a glance
    5. S.5 What each steward reads in it
    6. S.6 What this edition is, and is not
  3. 1Governance is the layer that sets the rules for every other system
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Debt-service squeeze under aid cuts, thinner oversight and a health or food shock
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

S.1Abstract

The world enters 2027 with a governance system that is adding rules faster than it is securing the means to apply them. V-Dem counts 92 autocracies and 87 democracies at the end of 2025 and finds that 74% of the world’s people live in autocracies1. Freedom House records the 20th consecutive year of decline in global freedom, with 54 countries deteriorating and 35 improving2. International IDEA reports that more than half of the countries it assesses declined in at least one aspect of democratic performance over five years3. Institutions are building some tools: 141 states have statutory guarantees of access to information and 141 countries have national disaster risk reduction strategies6. Their use is uneven, and a test of identical information requests in 76 countries found that 38% received no substantive reply5. The means are under pressure. Developing countries paid USD 995 billion in net interest on public debt in 20259, and official development assistance fell 23.1% to USD 174.3 billion, the largest annual fall on record6. Between 2024 and 2025 the General Assembly and the World Health Assembly adopted a Pact for the Future, a Pandemic Agreement, a Convention against Cybercrime and an AI panel and dialogue, each of which depends on later steps to operate16171819. This baseline sets out what the evidence supports and where it is thin. It scores no country and recommends no policy.

S.2Key messages

Six readings that frame the governance baseline, and the eight questions this edition answers, each with its status and source.

  1. V-Dem, Freedom House and International IDEA all report net decline in 2025, on different scales.123

    How is democracy faring?Reported

  2. Laws are spreading (141 states) but implementation tests found many mute refusals.56

    Do transparency laws work?Reported

  3. Women hold 27.2% of parliamentary seats and young members 19%.125

    Who is represented?Reported

  4. Interest bills reached USD 995 billion for developing countries, and aid fell 23.1%.96

    Can governments pay for services?Reported

  5. The perception index reached a new low average of 42; survey bribery medians sit near 17%.46

    How corrupt is public life?Reported

  6. Trust and low corruption were associated with lower infection rates in one study of 177 countries.28

    Does governance affect health?Reported

  7. Several instruments were adopted in 2024 and 2025 and depend on ratification thresholds.1819

    Are new rules in force?Reported

  8. A debt squeeze that coincides with aid cuts and a health or food shock. SCN-GS14-DBT-01

    What will 2027 test first?Expert input

S.3Headline finding

ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-POLICY-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-005

In 2025 developing countries paid USD 995 billion in net interest on public debt, and 51 of them spent more on interest than on either education or health.

Figure S.1Net interest and potential saving, developing countries, 2025 (USD billion)
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Net interest on public debt995
Annual saving at developed-country borrowing costs500

Source: UNCTAD, A World of Debt 2026, key statistics9.

The interest bill is close to USD 1 trillion and is 8.1% of government revenue at the median. The issuer reports that 3.7 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest than on either education or health, 1.2 billion more than in 2010. Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean spend more per person on interest than on health or education9.

S.4At a glance

74%

of people in autocracies, 20251

141states

with access to information laws, 20266

27.2%

women in national parliaments, 202512

995USD billion

net interest, developing countries, 20259

174.3USD billion

official development assistance, 20256

117.8million

forcibly displaced people, end 20257

S.5What each steward reads in it

GCRI · KEY T

Technical Truth

The evidence supports reading governance as the layer that sets the rules and the means for the WEFH+B system.

GRF · KEY M

Public Meaning

For most people governance arrives as a service, a permit, a court or a bribe request.

GRA · KEY F

Capital Meaning

Readiness implications only. Interest costs, falling aid and a shrinking pool of concessional money show where finance-readiness evidence will matter.

NEXUS

Synthesis

Governance is well measured at the level of regimes, laws and public finance and thinly measured at the level of implementation, local capacity and trust.

S.6What this edition is, and is not

What this edition is

A baseline: the 2026 state of how the world is governed and the couplings through which it carries risk into other systems. It synthesises published evidence and ranks no country, company or asset.

What it is not

Not a democracy or freedom score, a forecast of political events, a policy recommendation or an assessment of any government, legislature, court or international organisation. Law, policy and institutional decisions rest with the competent public authorities.

What comes next

National, regional and sector evidence feeds the 2027 governance edition through the federation. Each edition reports what changed against this baseline: observations, source revisions, method changes, scenario updates and corrections.

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 1Nord, M., Altman, D., Fernandes, T., Good God, A. and Lindberg, S.I., Democracy Report 2026: Unraveling The Democratic Era? (March 2026; PDF read, based on the V-Dem dataset v16). V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 2Freedom House (ed.), Freedom in the World 2026: The Growing Shadow of Autocracy, press release of 19 March 2026 (the press release was read, not the report). Freedom House, Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 3International IDEA (ed.), The Global State of Democracy 2025: Democracy on the Move (publication summary page read, not the PDF). International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm. Observation year 2024 to 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 6United Nations Secretary-General, Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, A/81/93-E/2026/73, 8 June 2026 (PDF read). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2024 to 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 5UN DESA Statistics Division (ed.), The Sustainable Development Goals Extended Report 2026, Goal 16 indicator storylines (inputs as of 30 April 2026; PDF read). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2024 to 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 9UNCTAD (ed.), A World of Debt 2026: Rising debt costs and stalling development (publication page with key statistics read; the full report was not opened). UN Trade and Development, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 16United Nations General Assembly, resolution 79/1, The Pact for the Future, 22 September 2024 (PDF read; 56 actions). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 17United Nations General Assembly, resolution 79/325, Terms of reference and modalities for the establishment and functioning of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence and the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance, 26 August 2025 (PDF read). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 18United Nations General Assembly, resolution 79/243, United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, 24 December 2024 (PDF read). United Nations, New York. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 19World Health Assembly, resolution WHA78.1, WHO Pandemic Agreement, 20 May 2025 (PDF read, including the annexed agreement). World Health Organization, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 12DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators, SG.GEN.PARL.ZS, proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments, world aggregate (API extract, series last updated 2026-10-08; underlying data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union). World Bank, Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 4Transparency International (ed.), Corruption Perceptions Index 2025 (results page read). Transparency International, Berlin. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 28COVID-19 National Preparedness Collaborators, Pandemic preparedness and COVID-19: an exploratory analysis of infection and fatality rates, and contextual factors associated with preparedness in 177 countries, from Jan 1, 2020, to Sept 30, 2021, The Lancet 399(10334), 1489 to 1512, 2022 (open-access record and abstract read through Europe PMC; the full text was not read). Elsevier. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 7UNHCR (ed.), Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2025 (PDF read as a mirrored copy of the agency document; data as of 1 May 2026). UN Refugee Agency, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this summary

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Executive summary: Executive summary. In Nexus Global Policy, Institutions and Governance Risk and Resilience Report 2026: Baseline Edition, The State of the World’s Policy, Institutions and Governance. (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-SECTOR-POLICY-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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