New UN Risk Report: Mis- and disinformation Among Top Threats as Global Readiness Falls Short

Raging conflicts, climate chaos, soaring inequality — our world is facing a daunting list of global risks. But how prepared are we to meet them? That’s the subject of a new landmark UN report that offers an urgent call to action.

As things stand, the world is not prepared for many of the challenges we face. That’s the key finding of the first-ever UN Global Risk Report — the results drawn from a survey of over 1,100 leaders from government, industry, civil society and academia in 136 countries.

Respondents were first asked to rank 28 global risks in order of importance, then to rate the international community’s readiness to respond. The confluence of these two factors gives us “global vulnerabilities” — the most important risks that we are least prepared for.

The number one Global Vulnerability? Mis- and disinformation, an extremely complex challenge on which my team and I have long been focused. This top concern was shared across the world, but especially in Europe, the Americas, the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The problem is as urgent as it is thorny. Of all global vulnerabilities highlighted — cybersecurity, pandemics, AI, mass migration — 80% of respondents picked out mis- and disinformation as a dangerous risk that was already happening.

Not only that, these risks are interconnected. Mis- and disinformation does not stand alone. We already know that it is one area of risk in the information environment driving violence, undermining human rights and distracting from urgently needed climate action. In short, it isn’t something we can ignore.

The UN has long warned about the harms caused by threats to information integrity such as mis- and disinformation. While they aren’t new, they are unprecedented in their current scale and sophistication — and now supercharged by readily available generative AI tools.

It’s clear what we must do to move from risk to resilience: work together, between governments and across sectors. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has long stressed, global problems require global responses.

The Report concludes with a recommendation from the Secretary-General to immediately create a task team to strengthen the United Nations System’s capacity to address risks in the information ecosystem. The team, building on work that my Department has already begun across the UN to focus on the effects of mis- and disinformation on United Nations mandate delivery, including through research, risk assessment and response strategies.

It will also build on a powerful new initiative that we brought out last summer, the United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity. These Principles offer guidance to all actors that can help create healthier information environments whilst upholding essential human rights.

The Principles urge action from key stakeholders, governments, tech companies, AI developers and advertisers, and also include recommendations for researchers, academics and media. They are acting as an important beacon for change.

Take climate action for example. Together with Brazil and UNESCO, the UN has launched a closely related initiative tackling climate disinformation. By building global networks, we are researching, rating risk, and mounting a robust response to the narratives of inaction.

One thing is clear when looking out on this landscape of global risk: ultimate responsibility lies with today’s leaders. They face a stark choice: breakdown, or break through to a better tomorrow — one in which we all live in peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet.