The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
The governance of capital asks how societies decide where savings and public resources are invested, on what evidence and under whose oversight. It draws on public finance, development economics, financial economics, law and political science. On Capital Nexus, The Global Risks Forum (GRF) treats it as an institutional field: the mandates, rules and relationships that decide whether capital reduces risk or concentrates it.
The Capital Nexus field covers capital-related institutional dialogue focused on risk-informed investment policy and public-good readiness, not finance execution. Experts in it study questions such as public purpose capital and resilience finance governance, with methods such as financial economics and macro-finance as well as economics and development economics. Its counterparts at GCRI and GRA look at the same systems through science and finance.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Infrastructure, housing, energy systems and public services built today will face the hazards and economic conditions of the coming decades. Whether they are designed and financed with those risks in view depends on the institutions that allocate capital: finance ministries, development banks, public investment agencies, pension and sovereign funds, and private investors under their mandates and rules.
Risk also travels the other way. Shocks reach public budgets, banks and investors, and the governance of capital decides who absorbs losses and how quickly recovery is financed.
How public investment is prioritized, appraised and managed. See public purpose capital.
How risk evidence enters investment decisions, and who holds the decision. See resilience finance governance.
What institutions are required to consider and report. See climate and nature finance policy.
How boards, auditors and legislatures hold capital allocators to account. See investment governance.
Who gains access to capital and who bears risk. See finance and inequality.
The governance questions here rest on research from The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), for example on public finance and risk, and meet the industry questions examined by The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) on Public Finance and Sovereign Debt and Financial Stability. Field gateways: development finance, sovereign and public finance and financial stability.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Contingent liability | A government obligation that arises only if a particular event occurs, such as disaster relief or a guarantee being called. |
| Concessional finance | Lending on terms more generous than market terms, measured by its grant element. |
| Debt sustainability | A government's ability to meet its current and future debt obligations without exceptional financing or a major correction, as the IMF assesses it. |
| Systemic risk | Risk arising from interconnections, where failure in one part can cascade through a whole system. |
Dialogue and analysis use finance-policy synthesis, comparative institutional analysis and learning from disclosure practice, grounded in policy, institutional and decision science and economics. Methods and their limits are set out on methods and critical debate.
GRF convenes and governs programmes. It does not regulate, finance, procure or certify, and hosting or sponsorship confers no authority over findings.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.