The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Every government decision carries risk, but few governments decide with a shared picture of it. Risk informed policy is the practice of bringing evidence about hazards, exposure, vulnerability and systemic interdependence into budgets, regulation, investment and planning, with clear ownership at the centre of government. This page sets out how policy risk develops when that practice is missing, how the capacity for it is measured, and which institutions hold the decisions that depend on it.
GRF · Established · service level R0
Risk-informed policy is the practice of bringing evidence about hazards, exposure, vulnerability and systemic interdependence into budgets, regulation, investment and planning, with clear ownership at the centre of government. A national risk assessment alone is not enough; it must connect to the procedures where decisions and money are set.
For risk informed policy, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and flood water with place names and borders from NASA GIBS, framed on Africa; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For risk informed policy, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and flood water with place names and borders from NASA GIBS, 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.
Layers and dates
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Risk-informed policy · Member state A · Session 3
| A · guidance only | 37 | Low | Mixed | High |
| B · duty with standards | 68 | Medium | Positive | Medium |
| C · duty, standards, funding | 76 | High | Positive | Low |
Risk across government decisions. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Risks that cross ministries often belong to none of them. Without an assigned lead, a coordinating body and a budget line, assessment is duplicated in some places and absent in others, and the gap is found only after a shock.
Electoral and budget cycles reward visible spending over prevention whose benefits are diffuse and delayed. Risks that build slowly, such as ageing infrastructure or fiscal exposure to disasters, are deferred until they become emergencies.
National risk assessments are produced but not linked to budget rules, investment appraisal or regulatory review. The evidence exists, yet no procedure obliges a decision-maker to read it before committing funds or making rules.
When risk is unmanaged, losses land on public balance sheets as unplanned transfers, called-in guarantees and reconstruction costs. A shock in one sector becomes a fiscal shock, then a constraint on every other policy the government had planned.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| National risk assessment | A government's structured assessment of the most serious risks the country faces, their likelihood and impact. |
| Fiscal risk statement | A budget document that discloses risks to public finances, including contingent liabilities. |
| Centre of government | The bodies that support the head of government in coordinating policy across ministries. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National risk assessment linked to policy and budget procedures | categorical (none, partial, integrated) | periodic survey | OECD survey on the governance of critical risks | DECLARED |
| Ex ante impact assessment requirements for primary laws | composite score on the iREG scale | triennial | OECD Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance | ESTIMATED |
| Government effectiveness | estimate and percentile rank | annual | World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators | ESTIMATED |
| Fiscal risk statement published with the budget | yes or no, with scope of risks covered | annual | Budget documents and fiscal council reports | OFFICIAL |
| Disclosed contingent liabilities from disasters | share of GDP, as disclosed | annual | Fiscal risk statements | OFFICIAL |
| Strategic capacity of the centre of government | index score | periodic | Bertelsmann Sustainable Governance Indicators | ESTIMATED |
| Public investment projects appraised with risk screening | percent of approved projects | annual | National public investment system records | REPORTED |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| OECD Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance (iREG) | Comparable survey indicators on impact assessment, stakeholder engagement and ex post evaluation | Open, CC BY 4.0 |
| OECD Regulatory Policy Outlook | Periodic comparative review of regulatory practice and reform, with country profiles | Open, CC BY 4.0 |
| World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators | Aggregate estimates of government effectiveness, regulatory quality and four further dimensions | Open, CC BY 4.0 |
| Bertelsmann Sustainable Governance Indicators | Expert assessments of policy performance and executive capacity in OECD and EU countries | Free with attribution, publisher terms |
| IMF fiscal transparency evaluations | Country reviews of fiscal risk disclosure and management against the Fiscal Transparency Code | Free, IMF copyright and terms |
| National budget documents and fiscal risk statements | Published contingent liabilities, guarantees and disaster provisions | Public sector information, national terms |
Policy Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Centres of government and cabinet offices | Who owns each national risk, and how assessments must feed policy and budget decisions | Comparative institutional arrangements; the mandate map with gaps and overlaps marked |
| Ministries of finance | Whether and how to disclose and provision for contingent liabilities from disasters and systemic shocks | Fiscal risk statement practice across countries; the evidence labels behind disclosed liabilities |
| National legislatures and budget committees | What risk information to require with budget bills and major laws | Comparison of statutory reporting duties and how committees use them in scrutiny |
| Supreme audit institutions | Whether risk management arrangements work as the law intends | Audit criteria drawn from the OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Critical Risks; prior audit findings by theme |
Researchers and practitioners in risk-informed policy ask how risk enters ordinary decisions.
Most government decisions are made within portfolios, each with its own objectives and budget. A transport investment, a housing programme or a change in procurement rules can each add exposure to hazards or dependencies without any one ministry seeing the combined effect. National risk assessments often sit with security or emergency agencies and are not linked to economic and spending decisions. Accounting rules may record the cost of prevention but not the liabilities it avoids.
Countries that make progress tend to create clear ownership of cross-cutting risks at the centre of government, link risk assessment to budget and investment processes, and require risk to be considered in policy appraisal. Behavioural and political factors still matter: decision-makers discount distant risks, and accountability for avoided disasters is weak.
Structured identification and comparison of risks, drawing on decision analysis under uncertainty. Comparing very different risks on one scale is contested.
Requiring risk to be considered in impact assessments. Appraisal can become a formality.
Comparing how governments organize risk ownership, using policy and institutional science. Arrangements depend on constitutional context.
Estimating the fiscal exposure governments carry implicitly. Estimates depend on assumptions about who will be bailed out.
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.