Poll: Public favors multilateral collaboration

The public overwhelmingly favors multilateral cooperation and rejects the notion that countries' best interests are achieved at the expense of others, according to a global survey released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Sunday.

A clear majority of people in all regions of the world say they believe cooperation between nations is either extremely or very important. The survey also finds that a large majority rejects the idea that national improvement is a zero-sum game.

Regions differ however in their views. Asked how important it is that countries work together towards a common goal, a global average of 76 percent said they believe it is either extremely important or very important.

These sentiments are felt most strongly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where 88 percent share the same view. At the other end of the scale, only 61 percent of Western Europeans and 70 percent of North Americans say they consider cooperation to be extremely or very important.

The rate is 86 percent in China, 81 percent in Brazil, 67 percent in the United States, 57 percent in Britain, and 46 percent in France.

The research, covering 10,000 people from every region of the world, including 843 in China, was commissioned to SAP and Qualtrics ahead of WEF's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland from Jan 22-25.

Asked whether their country has a responsibility to help other countries in the world, South Asians again registered the highest levels of concurrence, with 94 percent answering positively, compared to a global average of 72 percent.

Again North Americans and Western Europeans were the least effusive, with only 61 percent and 63 percent, respectively, answering in the affirmative. The percentage in China is 80 percent, compared with 57 percent in the US.

WEF organizers said one finding that will prove valuable to discussions during the annual meeting is the fact that while most people still believe in the power of international cooperation, they share a much less positive view of their own country when it comes to social progress.

"The combination of climate change, income inequality, technology and geopolitics pose an existential threat to humanity. What we see with this research is that, while the international community's capacity for concerted action appears constrained, the overwhelming desire of the global public is for leaders to find new ways to work together that will allow them to cooperate on these critical shared challenges we all face," said Klaus Schwab, WEF's founder and executive chairman.

When it comes to the role of technology in society, the people who say they believe technology does more good than harm outnumber those who say the inverse by a factor of nearly four to one.

When asked however whether they agree with the statement that technology companies are more interested in making the world a better place rather than simply making money, responses differed markedly between regions.

The region of the world where respondents take the most positive view of technology is sub-Saharan Africa, where 66 percent of those surveyed agree that technology companies want to make the world a better place, followed by South Asia (64 percent) and East Asia and the Pacific (63 percent).

This compares with only 39 percent of Western Europeans and 40 percent of North Americans and respondents from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.