WORLD AHEAD 2026 | The Meridian

The Meridian December 2025 World Ahead 2026 cover

Volume 1, Issue 2 · December 2025

World Ahead 2026: The Global South in the Year of Reckoning

From debt dynamics and climate finance gaps to labour market shocks, institutional fractures and shifting geopolitical alignments — The Meridian's annual outlook maps the structural pressures, policy fault lines and economic arithmetic shaping Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Indian Ocean in 2026. With verified data, named forecasts and a quarterly audit framework.

Top stories

Cover story: Who Pays for a Burning Planet? — The Global South's climate invoice is paid through weaker currencies, deeper debt, and slow-motion adaptation. | Global South Debt Playbook 2026: CACs, comparability of treatment, and "extend & pretend" — how defaults really resolve when markets meet politics. | The Human Capital Crisis: Education and health shortfalls become macro risk — productivity, politics, and fiscal strain collide. | 2026 Watchlist: Countries & Fault Lines — the shortlist of pressure points mapped into one operational dashboard view. | The Meridian Scorecard 2026: Explicit probabilities, triggers, falsifiable calls — rare, accountable forecasting. | Frontier States 2026: Survival economics for exposed countries — FX cover, food/fuel imports, climate risk. | Cover story: Who Pays for a Burning Planet? — The Global South's climate invoice is paid through weaker currencies, deeper debt, and slow-motion adaptation. | Global South Debt Playbook 2026: CACs, comparability of treatment, and "extend & pretend" — how defaults really resolve when markets meet politics. | The Human Capital Crisis: Education and health shortfalls become macro risk — productivity, politics, and fiscal strain collide. | 2026 Watchlist: Countries & Fault Lines — the shortlist of pressure points mapped into one operational dashboard view. | The Meridian Scorecard 2026: Explicit probabilities, triggers, falsifiable calls — rare, accountable forecasting. | Frontier States 2026: Survival economics for exposed countries — FX cover, food/fuel imports, climate risk.

Markets at a glance — THE MERIDIAN Data Desk

Ibovespa

162,832

+1.3%

MOEX

2,223

-0.2%

Sensex

85,268

+0.5%

SSE Comp

3,889

+0.4%

JSE All-Share

112,958

-0.3%

USD/BRL 5.42

USD/RUB 79.6

USD/INR 90.7

USD/CNY 7.05

USD/ZAR 16.8

USD/AED 3.6725

USD/SAR 3.75

USD/SCR 13.9

Commodities

Gold $4,369/oz

Brent $60.8/bbl

NatGas $4.07/MMBtu

Data snapshot based on latest available quotes (indices, FX, and commodities; delayed 15–20 minutes).

Updated: 15 Dec 2025 • 09:00 London • © THE MERIDIAN Data Desk

Cover Story & Lead Analysis

Cover Story · Global

Who Pays for a Burning Planet?

Loss & damage, adaptation finance and the subsidy math behind climate bills — who pays, when, and on what terms.

Risk Map · Global

The 2026 Risk Map

Default windows, IMF corridors, commodity pinch points and the geographies where shocks concentrate.

Editor's Note

Editor’s Note

What we’re testing in the World Ahead edition: scope, methods, and where readers should push back.

Start Here

World Ahead 2026 · The Meridian Brief

A 2-minute orientation to the edition: what’s inside, how to use the watchlist, and where our methods matter most.

Read the brief →

World Ahead 2026 · Navigation

Guide

How to Read the 2026 Watchlist

Risk tiers, trigger windows, scoring logic and how to read confidence bands without over-fitting headlines.

Numbers

The Meridian World in Numbers 2026

Population, energy, trade, debt and capital flows — the 2026 dashboard in 20 charts.

Scorecard

The Meridian Scorecard 2026

Our calls for 2026, what would falsify them, and the data that would change our minds.

Methods

Inside the Meridian Data Lab

From sources to series: how we build risk, power and progress metrics you can reproduce.

Methods

Inside the Data Lab II

Feature engineering, back-tests, audits and where human judgement still beats the models.

Watchlist

2026 Watchlist (Countries & Fault Lines)

Fifty+ countries, eight structural cracks, and the catalysts we think matter most in 2026.

Debt, IMF & The Subsidy State

Debt

Global South Debt Playbook 2026

Restructuring paths, common frameworks, domestic investors — and where the next crunch may land.

Sovereign Finance

The Hidden Balance Sheet

Quasi-fiscal operations, SOEs and guarantees: the liabilities that don’t sit in the budget — but still bite.

IMF

IMF Programmes in the Global South

Where the Fund is active, what’s in the letters of intent, and the politics that decide follow-through.

Subsidy

The Business of Subsidy

Fuel, food and power subsidies — who benefits, who pays, and why removal is harder than it looks.

People: Labour, Education & Health

Human Capital

The Human Capital Crisis of 2026

Learning losses, health gaps and stalled firm formation — the growth drag nobody prices properly.

Education

The Education Trap

High enrolment, low learning: why credential inflation isn’t human-capital growth.

Youth

A Generation Lost

Jobs, debt and disappointment: what prolonged youth underemployment does to societies.

Health

Health vs Guns

Budgets as moral documents: when security spending crowds out clinics, vaccines and nurses.

Infrastructure

Who Builds Hospitals?

PPP, philanthropy and state capacity — the real bottlenecks behind beds and bricks.

Systems: Markets, Productivity & Reform

Productivity

Cheap Labour, High Cost

The low-wage growth model is breaking: capital intensity, skills, and firm churn are lagging.

Macro

Debt Without Growth

When borrowing lifts interest bills but not output — and how countries get stuck in the middle.

Reform

Why Reform Fails

Sequencing, coalitions and patronage: the political economy behind stalled transitions.

Markets

Markets & Money 2026

Rates, spreads and flows in a three-speed world — what matters for borrowers and savers.

Frontier / Small States

Frontier

Frontier States 2026

Small balance sheets, big shocks: how frontier markets are navigating 2026’s squeeze.

Tech / Demographics

Technology

AI & Technology Outlook 2026

Compute, chips and capital — where AI power pools and who captures the value chain.

Demographics

Labour, Demographics & Migration 2026

Aging, urbanisation and mobility — the labour arithmetic shaping growth and politics.

Climate, Food & Infrastructure

Climate

Climate & Economic Resilience Outlook 2026

Heat belts, hydrology stress and the budgets that need to shift fastest.

Food Security

Breadlines & Fault Lines (Food Security 2026)

Fertiliser, freight and FX: how food risk stacks up across net importers.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure, Megacities & Development Battle

Who builds the roads, metros and grids — and why delivery beats big plans.

Energy / Commodities

Energy

Energy Transition Outlook 2026

Renewables, grids and minerals — bottlenecks to scale and the policies that unlock them.

Commodities

The 2026 Commodity Outlook

Oil, gas and metals in a volatile cycle — demand, supply and policy wild cards.

Geopolitics / Realignment / Structure

Geopolitics

The Meridian 2026 Geopolitical Outlook

Conflict risk, commodity leverage and the power shifts to watch across the Global South.

Structure

Fault Lines of the Emerging World Order

Eight cracks that define 2026: trade, tech, finance, food, energy, climate, borders, blocs.

Structure

Fault Lines 2026 (Eight Structural Cracks)

Where risks are baked into the architecture — and what could still shift.

Regions

The Regions of 2026

Power, growth and fragility cluster — a map of where 2026 is likely to happen.

Extras

Finance

The 2026 Financial Systems Outlook

Currency shocks, banking fragility and South–South capital — where cracks could widen.

Development

Development & Human Progress: A Global South Ledger

Where gains are real, where they’re fragile, and how we measure progress honestly.

Calendar

Power, Risk & Deadlines: 2026 Calendar

Elections, debt rollovers, summits and sport — the dates that move markets and policy.

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