Three choices for governments that will define our future

The 21st century began with a fear of a line of code. Y2K dominated the headlines. The world worried that computers would freeze, planes would fall from the sky and banks would lose records. Midnight came. Nothing collapsed.

The real shocks were not digital glitches. The unparallelled crises humanity faced, from wars and social unrest to natural disasters, pandemics and cyberattacks, were mostly due to human choices and assumptions.

At the very same time, humanity’s capabilities expanded faster than ever. Since the beginning of the new century, global GDP more than tripled, trade grew dramatically, and around 1.5 billion people were lifted out of extreme poverty. Data volumes exploded. Technology companies and digital platforms rose to dominate global markets. Artificial intelligence advanced from theory to a technology shaping every detail of our lives.

We live, in the most turbulent and the most capable period in human history. That tension is the defining feature of our era: We can do more than any previous generation – but we are not sure we will use that power wisely.

The next decade will not be decided by algorithms, markets or crises alone; they will be decided by choices of governments.

Below are three pivotal choices governments should make that will shape the future of humanity:

Decision #1: wealth or wellbeing?

In recent decades, we proved that we can grow rich. Yet we have not proven that we can grow well.

Global GDP has skyrocketed. Trade flows have surged. Asset prices have soared. Yet anxiety, depression and loneliness are rising in rich and poor countries alike.

Today, more than a billion people live with mental health disorders, according to the WHO. In 2021 alone, an estimated 727,000 people died by suicide – one of the leading causes of death among young people across all regions and income levels.

The economic cost is immense. Depression and anxiety alone are estimated to cost the global economy around $1 trillion every year in lost productivity – before counting the human pain behind the numbers.

The real debate is not “growth” versus “no growth”. It is wealth alone or wealth and wellbeing together – recognising that an economy can expand while a society quietly fragments.

For governments, the mandate is bigger than increasing output. It is to grow the dignity, stability and possibility in people’s lives, so that prosperity is not just measured in numbers, but felt in homes, workplaces and communities.

Decision #2: fragility or trust?

Every governance system runs on an invisible asset: trust. It is not a soft feeling. It is a hard economic and political resource.

Where trust is high, societies can pass tough reforms, follow rules voluntarily and manage conflict with less friction. Where trust is low, even good policies struggle – and reputations can be destroyed in a single news cycle.

Over recent decades, trust in institutions has eroded in many countries. Global trust in government hovers around 52%. The latest Edelman Trust Barometer shows why: people feel unprotected, unheard and misinformed. A broken social contract, a widening mass-class divide and the spread of misinformation have left many looking for alternative ways to exert control.

Optimism is collapsing too. Globally, only 36% believe the next generation will be better off. In most developed countries, fewer than one in five share that belief. For too long, trust has been treated as the byproduct of good policy. In an age of permanent visibility and instant communication, that is no longer enough. Trust has to be designed, measured and invested in – like roads, grids and digital networks.

Governments now face a clear choice to make: accept rising fragility as the new normal or treat trust as strategic infrastructure and rebuild it deliberately.

Decision #3: fragmentation or cooperation?

The International Monetary Fund estimates that a breakdown of globalization into rival economic blocs could cost up to 7% of global GDP.

This would be a sharp reversal of the gains from recent decades, when integration and cooperation helped alleviate poverty, lowered costs and created hundreds of millions of jobs. Today, more than 100,000 flights a day move people, goods and ideas. The global logistics sector is estimated to reach $12.8 trillion in 2025 – roughly the combined economy of France, Japan, Germany and the Netherlands.

Yet we have seen a surge in protectionism, “reshoring” and trade barriers. Since 2022, nearly 3,000 new trade-restrictive policy interventions were introduced every year – five times more than in 2017.

If globalization is viewed only as a threat to national interests, countries will keep building walls. If it is seen as a platform for mutual gains, innovation and cultural exchange, the focus will shift to making it fairer, more resilient and more inclusive.

The choice is between a future of fragmentation, with higher costs and greater volatility, or a renewed commitment to integration that learns from past mistakes instead of abandoning the project.

By any historical measure, the next decade will unfold in an unprecedented context. We are moving into a world that is older and younger at the same time: older in its demographics, younger in its technologies. Nearly 9 billion people, living longer lives, will inhabit a planet wired with billions of sensors, devices and intelligent systems. The tools at our disposal – from AI and quantum computing to synthetic biology and space technologies – will exceed anything previous generations could imagine.

But tools do not carry purpose. Power does not come with instructions. That is what makes the three axes of choice so important. Wealth or wellbeing, fragility or trust, fragmentation or cooperation are not separate debates in separate ministries: they are one integrated governance agenda.

These choices reinforce one another. Wellbeing strengthens trust; trust enables cooperation and fosters stability. The opposite is also true: fragmentation erodes wellbeing, undermines trust, and fuels turbulence. Governments are not simply managing three separate risks – they are choosing between two trajectories.

In that sense, the central question of our time is no longer what the future will bring, but who we will be when it arrives. The answer will be written less in code and more in constitutions, budgets, regulations and international agreements. They depend less on engineers and markets, and more on the courage and clarity of governments, institutions and citizens.

We are the first generation with capabilities this powerful, and perhaps the last, with a real choice: to stabilize the world or destabilize it.