Marsh Risk Consulting (MRC) and its parent, Marsh, as well as other MMC sister companies, have played an active role in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Risk Network (GRN), which seeks to identify major global risks, assess their economic impact, and develop mitigation solutions. The findings of the GRN are caputred annually in the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report. The identified risks are global in scope, have cross-industry implications, and significant economic and social impact.

For the past five years, MMC has partnered with the WEF and organizations such as Citigroup, Swiss Re, Zurich Financial Services, and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School Risk Center to produce the Global Risks Report. This year's report focuses on the risks related to the recovery from the financial crisis and the implications of functioning in a new risk environment. With the report's perspective of a 10-year horizon, key risks highlighted in this year's report include the following:

• Fiscal crises and continued unemployment;
• Underinvestment in infrastructure; and
• Chronic diseases

Global Risks 2010 contends that the current models for health, education, and unemployment protection have been put under significant pressue due to the turbulence caused by dramatic fluctuations of the world's financial markets. Specifically, the report focuses on the the fundamental need to change the way global risks are analyzed and managed and provides recommendations to combat governance gaps in order to overhaul the current values and behaviors of key decision-makers.

The report presents global risks against a backdrop of a higher level of systemic risk, global governance gaps, and potential impacts of "creeping risks" such as transnational crime and corruption and biodiversity loss, the impact of which may not be fully recognized. Highly interconnected risks, if not managed with a view to each risk's inter-connections, will have much further and deeper implications than most decision-makers realize.

The Global Risks Network urges policy makers to address and understand risks in the context of the wider economic system and to consider policies that encourage long-term infrastructure investments to foster resource efficiencies, particularly for energy and agriculture.