The Global Competitiveness Report SPECIAL EDITION 2020 How Countries are Performing on the Road to Recovery Klaus Schwab Saadia Zahidi World Economic Forum The Global Competitiveness Report Special Edition 2020: How Countries are Performing on the Road to Recovery Terms of use and disclaimer The analysis presented in the Global Other parties may have ownership interests in some Competitiveness Report Special Edition 2020 of the data contained in this report. The World (herein: “report”) is based on a methodology Economic Forum in no way represents or warrants integrating the latest statistics from international that it owns or controls all rights in all data, and the organizations and a survey of executives. 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E-mail: [email protected] www.weforum.org ISBN 978-2-940631-17-9 Copyright © 2020 The report and an interactive data platform are by the World Economic Forum available at www.weforum.org. 2 The Global Competitiveness Report Special Edition 2020: How Countries are Performing on the Road to Recovery Contents 4 Preface 5 Executive Summary 9 Introduction 11 Section 1 Enabling Environment 12 1.1 What were the enabling environment-related priorities emerging from the past decade? 17 1.2 What are the priorities for the enabling environment for the revival of economies? 19 1.3 What are the priorities for the transformation of enabling environments? 20 Section 2 Human Capital 21 2.1 What were the human capital-related priorities emerging from the past decade? 25 2.2 What are the priorities for human capital development for revival of economies? 26 2.3 What are the priorities for the transformation of human capital? 27 Section 3 Markets 28 3.1 What were the markets-related priorities emerging from the past decade? 35 3.2 What are the priorities for markets to become a driving force in economic revival? 36 3.3 What are the priorities for the transformation of markets? 38 Section 4 Innovation Ecosystem 39 4.1 What were the innovation ecosystem-related priorities emerging from the past decade? 41 4.2 What are the priorities for innovation ecosystem to for the revival of economies? 42 4.3 What are the priorities for the transformation of innovation ecosystem? 43 Section 5 Measuring Economic Transformation Readiness 52 Section 6 Disruptions and Resilience: Tracking the Impact of the Pandemic through Business Perceptions 53 6.1 The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on indicators of competitiveness 54 6.2 Key features of competitiveness that enhanced countries’ responses to the pandemic 63 Appendix A – Transformation Readiness Framework: Methodology and Definitions 73 Appendix B - Transformation Readiness Performance by Score in Category 77 Appendix C – The Executive Opinion Survey: The Voice of the Business Community 87 Contributors and Acknowledgements 88 Partner Institutes © 2020 World Economic Forum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system. 3 The Global Competitiveness Report Special Edition 2020: How Countries are Performing on the Road to Recovery Preface Klaus Schwab Saadia Zahidi Founder and Managing Director Executive Chairman The combined health and economic shocks of vision and a nuanced balance between the short 2020 have impacted the livelihoods of millions and long term. At the World Economic Forum’s of households, disrupted business activities, New Economy and Society Platform, the home and exposed the fault lines in today’s social of The Global Competitiveness Report, provides protection and healthcare systems. The crisis has an ecosystem for such actors. Over 200 leaders also further accelerated the effects of the Fourth from government, business and civil society Industrial Revolution on trade, skills, digitization, work together to shape a new vision, design new competition and employment, and highlighted the standards and drive scalable, collaborative action disconnect between our economic systems and on four deeply interconnected areas: 1) economic societal resilience. growth, revival and transformation; 2) work, wages and job creation; 3) education, skills and In this moment, it is crucial to not only reflect learning; and 4) diversity, inclusion, equity and on how best to return to growth, but also, how social justice. By combining insight, standards to build back better economies that improve and action the Platform serves as an accelerator outcomes for people and the planet. This special for leaders championing emerging solutions, edition of the Global Competitiveness Report pilots and partnerships. We invite like-minded provides the basis to support such deeper leaders to join us to co-shape the new solutions reflection, providing policymakers with priorities highlighted in this report, working together with across three timeframes: those priorities that the urgency and ambition that the current context emerged from before the crisis, those priorities demands of us. that are critical for the shorter term revival, and those priorities that are essential for longer term We want to express our gratitude to the core transformation for better outcomes on shared project team involved in the production of this prosperity and sustainability in the future. report: Roberto Crotti and Kusum Kali Pal, as well as their colleagues who supported the Since 1979 the Global Competitiveness development of the new concepts for future Report series has aimed to broaden the views transformation: Silja Baller, Sophie Brown, Attilio of policymakers, business and the public di Battista, Guillaume Hingel, and Vesselina on looking beyond growth alone to enhance Stefanova Ratcheva. Our deep gratitude goes economic productivity and broader resilience. to our network of Partner Institutes, which help In this Special Edition, at this turbulent time for administer the Executive Opinion Survey, whose the global economy, we pause comparative results provide invaluable data. country rankings on the Global Competitiveness Index. Instead we take a fundamental look at We hope this Special Edition of the Global how economies should think about revival and Competitiveness Report will serve as a call transformation as they recover and redesign to action to engage in the visionary and bold their economic systems to enhance human leadership required to build a new economic development and compatibility with the agenda for growing, productive, sustainable and environment.