The World Investment Plan Leveraging Capital Markets for a Peaceful Transition to the Information Era

We live in an era of extraordinary turbulence. Wars rage in Europe and the Middle East, climate shocks intensify, and social unrest reveals fractures within societies. These are not isolated crises but outward signs of a civilisational transition marking the shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. This transformation is reshaping global order, political structures, economies, and cultural norms. Managed well, it offers the prospect of a secure, sustainable, and superior future. Managed poorly, it risks deepening instability and undermining peace and prosperity.

The turbulence confronting humanity is more than a polycrisis of simultaneous shocks. It is also a metacrisis, a systemic failure of governance, economics, values, and leadership. Multilateral institutions are weakened, populism reshapes politics, and progress on universal goals has stalled. Democracy has retreated to 1985 levels, only 17% of the targets underlying the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) remain on track, and global CO₂ emissions continue to rise. Meanwhile, the world possesses almost US$700 trillion in assets, yet that capital does not flow to meet development and climate goals.

This month’s Sign of the Times looks at the World Investment Plan, which reframes these challenges as opportunities. By aligning capital, technology, and governance, the world can transform today’s turbulence into the foundation for a new era of prosperity, sustainability, and resilience.

Turbulence in Transition

The world is defined by escalating turbulence. Armed conflicts displace millions, climate shocks break successive records, social unrest reverberates across continents, and technology fractures both relationships and societies. These developments, while seemingly disparate, are symptoms of a deeper structural transformation; the world is undergoing a civilizational transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. As with previous era shifts, the process is inherently destabilizing, unsettling, entrenched hierarchies of power, wealth, and governance.

This turbulence has been widely labelled a polycrisis, a convergence of shocks whose interaction produces effects greater than the sum of their parts. Yet the reality is more fundamental, it is a metacrisis, not simply a cascade of interlinked crises, but the systemic failure of the very frameworks intended to contain them. Governance fails, values and norms erode, and institutions once built to stabilize now contribute to fragmentation. The collapse of trust in leadership, the corrosion of truth in an age of disinformation and artificial intelligence, and the rise of populist movements illustrate how profoundly the existing order struggles to adapt.

The consequences are visible in stark terms. Since the mid-1990s, the top 1% of humanity have captured 38% of new global wealth, while the bottom half has received only 2%.ⁱ In advanced democracies, vulnerability has grown, the share of the population living in poverty or financial distress in the US, the UK and France ranges from 15%-21%, or c.65 million people in total. Wars exacerbate these disruptions. More than 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced since 2022,ⁱⁱ while in Gaza, Israeli operations following the October 7th attacks uprooted 1.9 million people, close to 90% of the enclave’s population.ⁱⁱⁱ These upheavals compromise not only physical security but also the social and psychological integrity of nations.

Superimposed on conflict and inequality is the existential challenge of climate change. Global CO₂ emissions reached a new record 2024, with the IPCC now projecting a temperature increase of 2.5-3.0°C this century,^iv a trajectory that would threaten ecosystems, food systems, economies, and political stability alike, driving mass population displacement and lead to increasing numbers of fragile state, with a compounding effect from migration on neighbouring and host countries.

This turbulence is not random but the predictable outcome of systemic transition. As the Industrial Age gives way to the Information Age, global institutions, governance structures, and collective initiatives lag behind the realities of accelerating technological development and deepening interdependence. Whether this crisis serves as a prelude to renewal or disintegration depends on the capacity of states and societies to realign systems to the imperatives of a new era.

Leadership and Governance Vacuum

In periods of global transition, leadership has often been the decisive factor determining whether disruption gives way to renewal or collapses into disorder. Today, however, the world confronts a deficit of such leadership. The US, long regarded as the guarantor of order and the “essential nation,” has begun to retreat from multilateralism at precisely the moment when it is most needed. The weakening of institutions built in the aftermath of the Second World War compounds this retreat. Washington’s inward turn, marked by disputes over diversity, migration, and governance, and its outward turn marked by withdrawal from international agreements, reductions in foreign aid, cuts to UN agencies, and the imposition of sweeping tariffs on trading partners, signals a fundamental reorientation - a focus on domestic priorities and on leveraging power abroad primarily to redress perceived injustices or extract value. The effect has been to leave the global system exposed and fragile.

As a result, the global order is reconfiguring. As great powers compete for advantage, new alignments emerge, some countering threats, others exploiting instability, and still others for finding mutually beneficial opportunity. The result is a complex web of influence where shared direction is absent and universal frameworks, whether for human rights, development, or climate, lack enforceability. The crisis of leadership is compounded by the erosion of truth and trust. Advances in artificial intelligence and the pervasiveness of digital media have produced instruments capable of manipulating perception, dividing societies, and rendering facts themselves contested. Propaganda, disinformation, and post-truth politics transform information into a weapon of conflict. Technology applied to social interactions has turned human belief into a battlefield, destabilizing the foundations of democracy and governance.

Meanwhile, populism has surged. Across regions, political survival increasingly rests not on broad prosperity but on the mobilization of division. Some populist regimes may deliver growth, but many will predominantly fuel polarization, inflame identity conflicts, and hollow out institutions to entrench power. Competence and effective delivery no longer guarantee electoral success; ideology and grievance are often traded for prosperity by voters, at least for a time.

Economic pressures further darken the landscape. Inequality remains entrenched, while the relentless pursuit of growth continues to exhaust natural resources. Absent breakthroughs in science and inclusive innovation, this trajectory is set to deepen instability. Added to this is a decline in both compassion and acceptance of established rules of engagement; rising brutality in conflict, the weaponisation of resources and migration, and transgressions of international law reflect a harsher global order, one in which predation often replaces cooperation.

Multilateralism, designed to correct imbalances and provide collective direction, is seen to be hamstrung by outdated governance structures, inadequate resources, and declining legitimacy. The problem is not simply institutional weakness but the broader metacrisis, an order where power is wielded primarily for advantage rather than for common progress. Without a renewal of leadership rooted in universal purpose, the world risks entering an era in which disorder ceases to be episodic and becomes the prevailing condition.

Human Progress at Risk

The achievements of the post-war international order are faltering under the strain of contemporary turbulence. The International Bill of Human Rights, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Paris Agreement together constitute humanity’s most ambitious framework for dignity, prosperity, and ecological stability. Yet each pillar is now under visible stress, exposing the fragility of global progress.

Human rights, once regarded as universal and inalienable, are increasingly compromised. The obligations enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights, to respect, protect, and fulfil basic freedoms, are eroded by authoritarian consolidation, toxic civic discourse, and widespread violations. The global rollback of democracy is stark: today the average citizen lives under conditions comparable to those of 1985, when communist regimes still held sway across much of the world. Nor is this regression confined to fragile states; even advanced democracies are strained by disinformation, polarization, and populism, weakening the resilience of their institutions.

The development agenda shows similar fragility. By 2024, only 17 percent of SDG targets remained on track, while 74 of 193 UN member states had stalled or regressed.^v The aspiration to eradicate poverty, ensure education, secure universal health care, and deliver sustainable energy is increasingly distant. Inequality persists, social mobility stalls, and divides both within and across nations widen. Decades of incremental progress risk reversal.

Climate change magnifies these failures. With CO₂ emissions at record levels and temperatures continuing to rise the prospects of averting ecological crisis diminish with each year. Such a trajectory threatens ecosystems, undermines food and water security, accelerates extreme weather, and destabilizes economies and societies alike. Climate-induced displacement is already growing, compounding the dislocations of conflict and economic distress.

Today’s leadership do not seem to prioritize addressing these issues. The biggest blow comes from the withdrawal of the US, long the bastion of progress on these issues, from key multilateral frameworks, from the UN Human Rights Council to the Paris Agreement, has weakened both the authority of the UN and the alignment of the global community on rights, development, and climate. Tariffs and reductions in aid have further constrained international capacity to respond. With no dominant power or coalition able to impose coherence, the global commons are increasingly unprotected. Human progress, long assumed to follow a linear path, now stands in question. Without urgent and coordinated leadership, the gains of the past half-century risk unravelling, and the vision of universal dignity and sustainable prosperity may slip further from reach.

Finance, Markets, and the Flow of Capital

The paradox of our time is stark, the world has never been richer, yet it consistently fails to finance its most urgent needs. By 2024, global assets reached nearly US$700 trillion, roughly US$485 trillion in liquid wealth and US$270 trillion across debt and equity markets,^vi against a global GDP of approximately US$115 trillion.^vii The world, in principle, possesses more than sufficient capital to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, fulfil Paris Agreement commitments, and build resilience against climate shocks. The issue is not scarcity but the system of capital allocation itself.

Financial flows are constrained by mandates and regulations that prioritize risk-adjusted returns, keeping savings, pensions and assets safe, directing trillions toward advanced economies. Mechanisms such as blended finance, conceived as bridges to unlock private investment for global development, have proven inadequate. In 2024, flows from multilateral institutions accounted for only 0.1 percent of the SDG funding gap, several orders of magnitude below what is required.^viii

Meanwhile, the cost of inaction rises relentlessly. The SDG financing gap has widened to between US$92 and 112 trillion. Achieving global net zero by 2050 is projected to require US$152-184 trillion.^ix Each year of delay compounds the burden, raising the scale of investment needed to avert catastrophe. Inflation, the lost time of incremental action, and insufficient ambition only deepen the shortfall, making solutions more elusive.

It would be a mistake, however, to attribute these failures to the allocators of capital; markets are functioning as they were designed. The decisive variable is risk. While some argue that risk is mispriced, most investors find the costs of doing business in emerging markets prohibitively high and barriers to capital and profit exit equally severe. Under current conditions, the rational calculation of investors perpetuates concentration in advanced economies.

For capital to flow to developing economies, countries must present commercially viable opportunities that offer both the potential for attractive returns and the necessary transparency and risk management. The key prerequisite for such opportunities is an enabling system of enterprise, being the structured set of institutions, resources, and practices through which economic activity is organized and carried out. Functioning systems of enterprise are multi-dimensional, including everything from basic rules, norms that underpin how an economy functions, to financial architectures, innovation infrastructure, enterprise linkages, governance frameworks, and global integration capacity.

If countries can establish effective systems of enterprise, ones that are differentiated for their characteristics, they have the foundations for creating an intense set of changes that makes their country attractive, a ‘big bang’ of rapid social, economic and sustainable development that will not only substantially achieve sustainable development objectives but also give rise to entirely new markets. The UK’s financial deregulation in the 1980s propelled London into a leading global financial centre; China’s market reforms from the late 1970s drove the rise of its coastal provinces through export-led growth; and India’s 1991 liberalisation reduced the License Raj, opening space for a surge in private enterprise, particularly in IT and services; and the European Union addressed the massive divergence of prosperity between north and south by creating a common trading zone, unified regulations, and shared monetary policy.

Today, given the stakes are higher and the challenges global, what the world really needs is a global big bang that aligns enterprise, policy, and innovation and reduces the massive divergences between the north and south of the world, laying the foundations for a secure and superior future for the world. These foundations will allow for the achievement of SDGs and, over the longer term, the achievement of global net zero to mitigate climate change.

The World Investment Plan details the assets that need to funded and built to achieve these dual goals It identifies US$125 trillion in investable assets through 2035, 98% of which are suitable for private capital, of which c.50% are addressable by commercial markets and the remainder requiring enabling factors, such as policy reform, South-South technology transfer, and public financing.

The World Investment Plan details nature and types of assets to be built by 2035, which as the itemization shows, are of a kind that the world is accustomed to building:

• Energy. c.189,000 solar farms, or c.7 million wind turbines, equivalent to c.19,000 nuclear reactors installed (US$18.9 trillion)
• Power grids. 1 million km of power transmission lines and 16 million km of power distribution lines built or upgraded (US$9.5 trillion)
• Buildings. 90 billion m² of building retrofitted (US$11.1 trillion)
• Climate defences. 290,000 km of seawalls and 260 major flood protection systems built (US$1.3 trillion)
• Digital infrastructure. 40.1 million km of fibre optic cable and 28,800 data centres commissioned (US$5.4 trillion)
• Transport. 9.5 million km of roads, 480,000 km of rail, 321 ports, and 2,500 airports constructed (US$4.3 trillion)
• Housing. 266 million affordable homes built (US$9.8 trillion)
• Healthcare. 26,270 hospitals with 3.4 million beds built (US$2.5 trillion)
• Education. 483,000 schools with 7.2 million classrooms built (US$5.2 trillion).

Together these assets represent the physical and financial blueprint for securing a more sustainable and inclusive future.

Capitalism and Technology as Catalysts

Creating functioning national systems of enterprise is challenging, even for advanced industrialised nations. Creating the functioning global system of enterprise that the World Investment Plan requires even more so. A new financial architecture is therefore essential. Just as Bretton Woods restructured the global economic order after the Second World War, today’s challenges require a new international economic compact. The central task is to re-engineer risk in developing markets, transforming the risk-reward equation in ways that make flows of capital not only feasible but attractive. This is no small undertaking. Yet if achieved, the world’s vast stores of capital could be directed toward building the assets needed for a secure, sustainable, and prosperous future. If not, capital will remain misaligned, entrenching divides and magnifying instability. The central question remains, absent American largesse, without high-functioning multilateralism, and in the absence of willing top-down leadership, how can such a transformation be achieved?

One of the most important aspects of reengineering risk is correcting flaws in existing market mechanisms. Current systems reward short-term extraction while failing to account for externalities such as environmental degradation. By embedding the true costs of natural capital into asset valuations, markets would more accurately price activity and become a force for long-term prosperity. A fair international pricing framework, accounting for nature in particular, would redirect global capital markets, worth more than US$270 trillion in debt and equity, toward sustainable outcomes.^x High performers would be rewarded, while those who generate harm would face systemic penalties. If risk were re-rated, bank debt, tightly bound by risk-weighting, would also shift to address these markets, as lower risk premia would expand lending capacity, while households, though harder to mobilise, could also choose to trade returns for impact.

If finance provides the fuel for global transformation, technology is the catalytic force that determines how far and how fast humanity can advance. The world now stands on the threshold of a technological revolution cantered on 19 core technologies, from artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure to biotechnology and climate solutions, that hold the capacity to reshape markets, societies, and the trajectory of civilization itself. These technologies could narrow the digital divide, broaden opportunity, and build inclusive markets capable of lifting billions. Left unchecked, they risk widening inequality, entrenching dependency, and colonizing not only markets but human perception itself.

Artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things function as cross-cutting enablers, with the potential to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and expand access across multiple domains. Energy technologies will be indispensable to achieving net zero, while biotechnology and health innovations promise to extend human capacity and resilience. Properly harnessed, technology can transform need into demand, rivalry into constructive competition, and accelerate the transition to the Information Age. Yet absent shared governance, the benefits are likely to remain concentrated in advanced economies and dominant corporations, leaving large parts of humanity at the margins.

For this reason, a new international compact for technological inclusion is essential. Such a framework would establish global standards for artificial intelligence, digital trade, and data rights, enabling innovation to flow across regions while protecting sovereignty and promoting openness. Only then can technology become a driver of shared prosperity rather than a source of division.

Properly aligned, technology and capitalism can be the powerful agents of change that they have been at each major transition in the world in history, and can build a secure, sustainable, and superior future.

Conclusion: Preparing for a Global Transition

The turbulence of our time does not arise from isolated crises but from a systemic change to how humanity organizes power, allocates capital, and defines progress. The transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age is the catalyst for that systemic change, and it is challenging the efficacy of the institutions, governance models, and norms inherited from the past. This mismatch creates vulnerabilities, wars without resolution, inequality without remedy, climate risks without adequate response. Incremental reform will not suffice; the scale of today’s challenges demands systemic change.

At the structural level, global governance, financial systems, and trade frameworks require redesign. A new Bretton Woods, embedding sustainability, technology, and inclusion in a bid to address the level of risk in all its form, is a requirement to restore trust in international cooperation and create a far larger and more attractive level playing field for capital. Absent such renewal, divergent risks across countries will continue to widen the gap between global potential and delivery.

At the societal level, advancing human security is imperative for practical if not moral reasons. Rights, development, and climate stability together form the foundation of peace and prosperity. Protecting human dignity, ensuring financial inclusion, and addressing inequality are preconditions for stability in an interconnected world. Without progress in these areas, large-scale migration will persist, destabilizing more prosperous regions. Wealthier nations in turn will risk succumbing to populism, radicalization, and disorder.

The World Investment Plan offers a practical pathway for transformation. By translating the SDGs and climate commitments into US$125 trillion of investable assets through 2035, it reframes global needs as opportunities for profitable and sustainable investment. The resources exist, global assets today could fund the World Investment Plan five time over. What remains lacking is the systemic changes required to create the markets to absorb them.

The choice before humanity is stark. Persist with outdated systems and risk deepening fragmentation, or harness finance, technology, and governance to deliver a secure, sustainable, and superior future. If turbulence is understood not as a terminal threat but as a generative condition, the metacrisis of today can serve as the catalyst for a new era of human progress.

The Leader: Endnotes

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   https://www.iif.com/portals/0/Files/content/Global%20Debt%20Monitor_February2025_vf.pdf; International Monetary Fund. (2018, October). Fiscal Monitor: Managing Public Wealth. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund

7. Convergence Blended Finance (2025). The State of Blended Finance 2025. Convergence Report.

8. International Monetary Fund. (2025, July 29). World Economic Outlook update, July 2025: Global economy: Tenuous resilience amid persistent uncertainty [World Economic Outlook update]. International Monetary Fund. Retrieved Seotember 10, 2025, from https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2025/07/29/world-economic-outlook-update-july-2025

9. Convergence Blended Finance (2025). The State of Blended Finance 2025. Convergence Report.

10. Krishnan, M., Samandari, H., Woetzel, J., Smit, S., Pacthod, D., Pinner, D., Nauclér, T., Tai, H., Farr, A., Wu, W., Imperato, D., & et al. (2022, January 25). The net zero transition: What it would cost, what it could bring (McKinsey Global Institute report). McKinsey & Company. Retrieved August 28, 2025, from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/the-net-zero-transition-what-it-would-cost-what-it-could-bring

11. SIFMA Research. (2025, July). 2025 SIFMA Capital Markets Fact Book. Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. https://www.sifma.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2025-SIFMA-Capital-Markets-Factbook.pdf