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In many parts of the world, little or no official data on safety and risk exists. The information that is collected on accidents, injuries and near-misses is often minimal particularly outside of occupational contexts, and particularly among vulnerable, marginalised and hard-to-reach demographics and communities.
This makes it very hard to define the nature and scale of numerous safety challenges – from road-related accidents and workplace injuries, to unsafe waste disposal and the growing threats to life and property posed by climate change – around the world, and harder still to address them in the absence of comprehensive and reliable data.
There is less data still on how people around the world perceive risks to their safety, and the differences between this perception and their actual experience of harm. Without understanding these differences, it is harder to design and target effective risk management policies and communications.
That is why the Foundation is committing to help fill these data gaps using the World Risk Poll – the first and only global study of worry about, and harm from, risks to people’s safety.
It is our aim that this freely available data be used by governments, regulators, businesses, NGOs and international bodies to inform and target policies and interventions that make people safer. This will support progress towards a number of SDG targets, including but not limited to 3.7 on road traffic accidents, 3.9 on hazardous chemicals, 8.8 on safe working environments, 11.5 on disaster reduction, and 13.1 on climate resilience.
Lloyd’s Register Foundation commits to continue the World Risk Poll and its associated Resilience Index until at least 2026, engaging and partnering with key stakeholders including relevant UN bodies (as we have already done with the International Labour Organization and United Nations Environment Programme) to ensure the Poll topics and questions are tailored to address pressing data gaps on risk and safety, and that the resulting data will be actionable and directly support their work in these areas.
“The World Risk Poll provides a crucial platform for people around the world to voice concerns about their safety, systematically gathering data on everyday risks and harms. By amplifying the voices of those who are often marginalized or underrepresented, the Poll offers invaluable insights that can be used to guide interventions aimed at protecting the most vulnerable.
“By committing to continue the World Risk Poll until at least 2026, Lloyd’s Register Foundation aims to make a valuable contribution to filling data gaps in support of the Sustainable Development Goals, many of which have a safety component.”
Read our full commitment here. To find out more about the Commit to Data Campaign, visit commit-2-data.com.
The last World Risk Poll report of 2024 – ‘What the world worries about: global perceptions and experiences of risk and harm’ – will also be launched at the UN World Data Forum in Medellín, Colombia, as part of session TA2.17 on ‘Co-creating Climate Data Ecosystems for Long-term Resilience’, at 13.15 (UTC -5) on Friday 15 November.
A new funding call for research and practical projects to turn the World Risk Poll into Action to improve safety will also be announced.
World Risk Poll data has found that Eastern Africa is the least optimistic region in the world about artificial intelligence (AI), with more than half (51%) of respondents saying it would mostly harm people in their country over the next 20 years.
A report has revealed that residents over 65 in Brazil are significantly more likely to separate their waste before disposal – for instance, for recycling purposes – than those aged 15 to 29, according to the world’s first globally comparable dataset on household waste behaviours.
A report published today by the Institute for Economics and Peace uses data from the World Risk Poll to provide insights on public sentiment and perception of risk in Ukraine and Russia prior to the invasion.
