The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Policy on shared risks involves many decision-makers with different legal authority, accountability and legitimacy. This page locates the competent public and sectoral decision-makers for the kinds of questions Policy Nexus examines, sets out the boundaries between them, and explains how dialogue can support their decisions without replacing or influencing their authority improperly. It applies to every dialogue, brief and primer the platform publishes.
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For decision-rights context, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and flood water, framed on Africa; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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GeographyFor decision-rights context, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and flood water, framed on Africa; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
Decision rights in Policy Nexus define who decides what in policy, governance and institutions, and risk management and systemic risk: public authorities take statutory decisions, operators and institutions take operational ones, and affected communities, including Indigenous rights holders, hold rights of consent and participation. The platform brings evidence and options to those who decide and takes no decision itself.
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.
Parliaments make law and approve budgets; governments set strategy and direct the public administration, under each jurisdiction's constitution.
Independent agencies and regulators exercise powers delegated by law, often with protected independence that others must respect.
Regional and local governments decide on planning, services and enforcement within their competence.
| Decision | Holder |
|---|---|
| Adopt a law | Legislature |
| Adopt a regulation | Government or delegated regulator |
| Allocate budget | Finance ministry and legislature |
| Review implementation | Supreme audit institution, ombudsman, courts |
On cross-border risks, states decide through treaties, basin and regional organizations and international bodies, each with its own mandate and procedures. These arrangements create shared rules but rarely override national authority. Communities and rights holders, including Indigenous peoples, hold rights to participation and, in some cases, consent over decisions that affect them, recognised in national and international law.
Operators of infrastructure and services, public or private, make many decisions that determine how policy plays out in practice. They answer to regulators, owners and users rather than to dialogue forums.
Policy Nexus brings evidence, comparison and structured options to people who decide, and creates space for officials and experts to learn from each other. It does not take decisions, issue recommendations with binding force, speak for any authority or act as a channel for lobbying.
GRF convenes and governs programmes. It does not regulate, finance, procure or certify, and hosting or sponsorship confers no authority over findings.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Decision rights matrix | A table showing which body proposes, approves, executes and oversees each decision. |
| Competent authority | The body that a law or regulation designates to exercise a given power or duty, such as a supervisor, a civil protection agency or a ministry; only it can take the decisions the law assigns to it. |
| Free, prior and informed consent | The right of Indigenous peoples to give or withhold consent, without coercion, in advance and with full information, to measures that affect their lands, territories and rights, as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples sets out. |
| Subsidiarity | The principle that a decision is taken at the lowest level able to take it well, with a higher level acting only where the objective cannot be achieved closer to the people concerned; the Treaty on European Union states it. |
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
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.