The first and only global study of worry about, and harm from, risks to people's safety.
Globally representative, and covering places with little or no official data on safety and risk. The data are free for governments, regulators, researchers and civil society to use. The Poll will be repeated in 2027 and 2029.
A resilient life.
One score from 0 to 100, built from four levels of resilience.
Can I protect myself?
- Agency: could you do anything to protect yourself or your family from a future disaster?
- Educational attainment
Is my home ready?
- Financial assets: how long could the household cover basic needs if all income stopped?
- A disaster plan known to everyone over 10
- Access to the internet and a mobile phone
Will my neighbours help?
- Social capital: neighbours care, feeling safe walking at night, helping a stranger
- Satisfaction with local roads, schools and healthcare
Will institutions hold?
- Experience of discrimination
- Safety net: does the government care about you?
- Confidence in the military, courts, national government and elections
The ten most resilient countries, 2025.
| Rank | Resilience Index | Individual | Household | Community | Societal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vietnam76 | Sweden72 | Vietnam79 | Oman83 | Tajikistan97 |
| 2 | Kuwait74 | United States68 | United States77 | United Arab Emirates81 | Oman95 |
| 3 | Switzerland73 | Norway66 | Austria76 | Tajikistan81 | Morocco93 |
| 4 | Bahrain72 | Switzerland66 | Taiwan75 | Bahrain80 | Bahrain90 |
| 5 | Norway72 | Kuwait66 | Sweden74 | Indonesia78 | Kuwait87 |
| 6 | Singapore71 | Australia66 | Norway73 | Switzerland77 | Vietnam83 |
| 7 | Sweden71 | New Zealand65 | Cambodia72 | Vietnam77 | Tanzania82 |
| 8 | Oman70 | Philippines64 | Switzerland72 | Kuwait77 | Uzbekistan81 |
| 9 | United Arab Emirates70 | Vietnam64 | New Zealand72 | Singapore77 | Egypt79 |
| 10 | Luxembourg69 | Estonia63 | Singapore71 | Malaysia75 | Singapore78 |
Global resilience is stable at 57. Underneath, individual resilience keeps falling as societal resilience climbs.
Wealth buys individual resilience. It does not buy societal resilience.
High-income countries lead on individual resilience by 15 points over upper-middle-income countries, and score nearly twice as high as lower-middle- and low-income countries.
On societal resilience they come last of all income groups, at 57. The United States ranks second of 139 countries on the individual and household dimensions, and 130th on societal.
Several high-income countries have lost ground on societal resilience since 2021.
All six saw falls in confidence in national government and in feeling cared for by it. The United States is the widest split of any country: second on individual and household resilience, 130th on societal.
The global fall in individual resilience is driven by a handful of countries with large populations.
More countries gained agency than lost it. But the falls include India, Pakistan and Indonesia, which weigh heavily on the global average. Individual resilience fell from 46 in 2021 to 42 in 2025.
In Eastern Europe the falls came with a collapse in agency, down 42 points in Slovakia and 40 in Bulgaria. Morocco’s fall followed the 2023 earthquake.
Resilience is rising faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world.
These regions still have among the lowest scores globally, so the gains close a gap rather than open a lead. Rising internet access is one factor: up 17 points in Northern Africa since 2019, and 12 points each in Central/Western and Southern Africa.
Future wellbeing: capitals, risk and resilience.
Wellbeing is how we’re doing as individuals, communities and a nation, and how sustainable it is for the future. (UK ONS)
Future wellbeing: the systemic resources needed to sustain wellbeing in the future. (OECD)
Capitals are our wealth: the stocks and flows of resources, not captured by proxy metrics like GDP or life expectancy, that underpin future wellbeing, sustainability and resilience.
Risks are threats to our current and future wellbeing.
Resilience is our ability to deal with these threats.
Sustainability is maintaining resources over time.
A better-rated life is a more resilient one, up to a point.
People classified as thriving score 63 on the Resilience Index, against 56 among those struggling and 47 among those suffering. The gap is at least 10 points in every income group.
The link is strongest for individual resilience. Adults who are thriving score twice as high as those suffering, 52 against 26. It weakens at the community level and disappears at the societal level.
The gains flatten above a life rating of 7 out of 10, and national wealth does little to protect people with the lowest wellbeing.
Perceptions of care.
Most people feel little or no care from their governments or their neighbours.
Every time the Poll has asked, people have been more likely to say their government does not care about them at all than that it cares a lot. In 97 countries that gap is at least 10 points; the reverse is true in 20.
A 10-point gap in upper-middle- and high-income countries, narrowing to six points in lower-middle- and low-income countries.
Perceived care is U-shaped by national income. The least and most affluent countries share a symptom, not a cause.
Almost half of adults in low-income (44%) and high-income (45%) countries feel no care at all from government, against roughly one in four in lower-middle- (25%) and upper-middle-income (24%) countries.
Government care and community care are not substitutes. Weak institutions are not offset by strong informal networks: at the national level the two deficits tend to coincide (r = 0.57).
What the findings ask of policymakers.
In lower-income countries, strong community structures partly offset weaker individual resilience, whilst investment in education and in people’s sense of agency raises resilience at the individual level.
Fewer than one in four adults globally believe their government or their neighbours care about them a lot.
Weak institutions are not automatically offset by strong informal networks, and the two deficits tend to coincide rather than compensate.
Targeted support for the most vulnerable is as necessary in wealthy countries as in lower-income ones.
The steepest resilience gains lie at the bottom of the wellbeing distribution. Much of what shapes wellbeing and resilience is delivered locally.
Measures need to be matched to what drives low resilience in each society, whether that sits at the individual, household, community or institutional level.
tools.gsec.org.uk/wrp-explorer
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