Information and public trust
Institutions can only manage a shared risk if people trust what they are told and act on it. Trust is built by transparency, by honest communication about uncertainty and by correcting mistakes openly; it is eroded by secrecy, overstatement and disinformation. The Global Risks Forum (GRF) convenes public authorities, media, researchers and civil society on how institutions earn and keep public confidence under stress. GRF applies the same discipline to itself. Its specialist counterpart, Information Integrity and Public Trust, is in development.
- 01In briefThe short answer
- 02The governance questionsWhat earns and keeps confidence
- 03What is knownDrivers of trust that institutions can act on
- 04InstrumentsStandards institutions already hold themselves to
- 05PrinciplesWhat the dialogue works from
- 06GRF holds itself to the same rulesTrust starts at home
- 07Connected workWhere this area connects
GRF · Institution · service level R0
The short answer.
Information and public trust, as a governance area, is how institutions earn and keep public confidence under stress through transparency, honest communication about uncertainty and open correction, and how secrecy, overstatement and disinformation erode it. GRF convenes public authorities, media, researchers and civil society on that question.
Jurisdictions in West Africa.
The jurisdictions that hold authority over this question: countries, their first-level divisions and capitals, shown for West Africa as an example geography for this subject.
What earns and keeps confidence.
What institutions disclose
What is published about risks, decisions and their evidence, and what is withheld and why?
Speaking under uncertainty
Who speaks for whom, and how is uncertainty explained without causing false alarm or false comfort?
Responding without censoring
How do institutions respond to false information while protecting freedom of expression and media independence?
Drivers of trust that institutions can act on.
The OECD Trust Survey measures trust in public institutions against drivers that governments control: reliability, responsiveness, integrity, openness and fairness. Its findings across rounds point to the same levers: people trust institutions that explain decisions, act consistently, admit error and let them have a say. Risk communication research adds a second lesson. Stating uncertainty openly, with what is being done to reduce it, tends to preserve credibility better than false certainty that later collapses.
| Driver | Practice a dialogue can examine |
|---|---|
| Reliability | Whether public warnings are followed by consistent action |
| Openness | Whether the evidence behind a decision is published with its limits |
| Integrity | Whether conflicts of interest are declared and managed |
| Responsiveness | Whether complaints and corrections lead to visible change |
Standards institutions already hold themselves to.
- OECD Recommendation on Open Government and Recommendation on Public Integrity.
- The Aarhus Convention in Europe and the Escazú Agreement in Latin America and the Caribbean, on access to environmental information, participation and justice.
- The UN Global Principles for Information Integrity of 2024, for public communication in a contested information space.
Information integrity has its own specialist community at Information Integrity. GRF applies the same rules to itself through its public corrections route.
What the dialogue works from.
- Publish the evidence behind a decision with its limits, not only the decision.
- Separate what is observed from what is modelled and what is unknown.
- Correct errors openly as recorded new versions, never as silent edits.
- Respond to disinformation with accurate, accessible information and respect for media independence.
- Include affected communities in deciding how risk information reaches them.
Trust starts at home.
- 01
Status follows records
GRF describes an edition, host, appointment or outcome as confirmed only when a record shows it; see claims and programme state.
- 02
Open correction
Anyone can challenge a GRF claim without membership or payment, through corrections and concerns.
- 03
No overstatement
No superlatives, unverifiable counts or borrowed statuses on GRF pages. Statuses held by other institutions never extend to GRF.
- 04
Records, not consensus
Dialogue records state what was agreed and where participants disagreed. A record is not consensus, and silence is never reported as agreement.
- 05
Plain limits
Each claim carries its boundary in one plain sentence next to it, so a reader knows what GRF does not do as clearly as what it does.
Where this area connects.
Information Integrity and Public Trust is a proposed community, in development, for trust, information quality and public communication under systemic stress. Media organisations take part through the media and civil society constituency. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) studies information and public trust as a field. Related GRF areas are digital and AI governance and health security governance. The framework is on risk governance.
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Information integrity | The accuracy, consistency and reliability of information, supported by a plural and independent information ecosystem, as the UN Global Principles frame it. |
| Disinformation | False or misleading information created or spread deliberately to deceive or cause harm. |
| Warranted trust | Trust that matches an institution's actual reliability, as distinct from blind trust or unjustified distrust. |
| Risk communication | The exchange of information and advice between experts, authorities and people facing a threat so they can protect themselves. |
Where this page's references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
Does GRF fact-check or moderate content?
Is Information Integrity and Public Trust an active platform?
How can a media organisation take part?
Around GRF.
Start with an enquiry.
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.