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After the shock to the global financial system and world economy in 2008, 2009 was a year of appraisal and adjustment. The risk landscape that this report has explored over the past five editions has in fact changed remarkably little.

What has changed dramatically is the level of recognition that global risks, like the world, are now tightly interconnected and shocks and vulnerabilities are truly global, even if impact and response can still differ at the “local” level. This recognition is illustrated by the increased number of interlinkages on the 2010 Risks Interconnection Map (RIM).

Growing competition for scarce water resources is a growing business risk, a major economic threat, and a challenge for the sustainability of communities and the ecosystems upon which they rely. It is an issue that has serious implications for the stability of countries in which businesses operate, and for industries whose value chains are exposed to water scarcity.

Charting our water future: Economic frameworks to inform decision-making shows that while meeting competing demands for water will be a considerable challenge, it is entirely possible to close the growing gap between water supply and demand. This report provides greater clarity on the scale of the water challenge and how it can be met in an affordable and sustainable manner.

This is the fifth year that the Paying Taxes indicator has been included in the World Bank Group’s Doing Business project. The indicator measures the ease of paying taxes for a small to medium sized domestic company, in 183 economies around the world – two more than in last year’s publication.

Investors and policy-makers are facing an historic choice. At the very time when commentators are branding green investing as a luxury the world cannot afford, enormous investment in the world’s energy infrastructure is required in order to address the twin threats of energy insecurity and climate change.

Waiting for economic recovery, rather than taking decisive action now, will make the future challenge far greater. As the cost of clean energy technologies decreases and policy support is put in place, the shape of the eventual energy system is emerging. But the investment demand is substantial. Despite the recent turmoil, the world’s financial markets are up to the financing challenge, but they will need continued action from the world’s policy-makers and leading corporations.

2009 Global Hunger Index
The Challenge of Hunger: Focus on Financial Crisis and Gender Inequality

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that worldwide progress in reducing hunger remains slow. The 2009 global GHI has fallen by only one quarter from the 1990 GHI. Southeast Asia, the Near East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean have reduced hunger significantly since 1990, but the GHI remains distressingly high in South Asia, which has made progress since 1990, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where progress has been marginal.

Chronic diseases - the major causes of premature adult deaths in all regions of the world - have been generally neglected on the international health and development agenda. WHO is launching a global report on chronic diseases, which will present the latest scientific information and make the case for increased and urgent action for chronic disease prevention and control.

The report will review the burden of chronic diseases, major risk factors and associated trends. It will be an authoritative and state-of-the-art guide to effective and feasible interventions. The primary audience of the report will be health planners and decision-makers as well as stakeholders who can influence multisectoral government action.

Asia is rebounding fast from the depths of the global crisis. Initially, the region was hit extremely hard, with output in most countries contracting by more than even those nations at the epicenter of the crisis. But now Asia is leading as the world pulls out of recession. What explains this remarkable comeback? And what challenges does the recovery pose to Asian policymakers?