The World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos is probably the largest and most important networking event in the world, regularly attended by political and business leaders from across the globe. For 11 years now, the WEF has published an annual list of what its experts perceive to be the most important global risks and how these interact. Infectious diseases, for example, has featured for the past 6 years, although it failed to make it into this year’s list.

Infectious diseases on the list of major global risks listed by the World Economic Forum.

The list of risks with the highest possibility of occurring and/or the greatest impact is shown below, and can also be found on the 2016 Report here.

Image cropped from the World Economic Forum website.

I have followed the annual Global Risk report for a few years now, and it is increasingly apparent that crystal ball gazing is beyond the purview of the experts, organisations and leaders that are polled. Still, I suppose such a risk-map gives comfort to some.