Michael Pilkington

In a year that will delight numerologists (especially on November 11th, or 11:11:11), the most notable number will in fact be two. It will be a tale of two economies: a rich world struggling with a weak and jobless recovery, and an emerging world growing four times as fast. Europe will be divided between a solid centre of its euro zone and a wobbly periphery. Even within some countries a split will be increasingly apparent, typically between the parts benefiting from China’s boom and slow-growing bits; Australia will be a prime example of such a two-speed economy.

Look at politics, and you will often see two clashing forces, too. Germany’s mood will be sour despite a relatively robust economy. America faces gridlock between the White House and Congress. Africa’s largest country, Sudan, may actually split in two, after the south votes to go its own way.

A sense of division, and frustration, will also prevail in international affairs. For all the talk of co-operation on global issues and much activity from France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy at the head of both the G8 and the G20, it will often seem like a zero-sum world. Arguments over currencies, trade and climate policy will resemble a tug-of-war. Towards the end of the year there could be growing gloom over a very big number, as the world’s population approaches 7 billion and worries deepen about the sustainability of an increasingly crowded planet in the face of ever greater demands on its resources.

But the gloom will be overdone. The year ahead will produce striking examples of the power of technology and imagination to address fundamental problems of the age, such as how to wean motoring off oil and how to prevent the spread of diseases (and a roadmap for defeating one of the world’s worst killers, malaria, will become clearer in 2011). Some rich countries, not least Britain, will see remarkably radical reforms. Elsewhere, it will become evident that the success story of economic development is spreading beyond the likes of China, India and Brazil to other emerging markets, including parts of Africa, where Ghana will be a growth star.

Businesses and banks will grumble about the burden of regulation. But finance will be rather more boring and thus more stable. Vibrant start-ups will show how America can still generate jobs. And big global companies will realise that they need to become multinationimbles: that they have the best chance of thriving if they can combine scale with the agility to adjust to a fast-changing business environment.

One of the landmarks of change in 2011 will be China overtaking America as the biggest manufacturer. But China too could find itself being overtaken by India in economic growth, in what would be a sign of things to come. There will be other landmarks: Barack Obama turns 50, Wikipedia will have its tenth birthday, Twitter its fifth. With sadness, America will mark the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. With mixed feelings, the world will start to bid farewell to the incandescent lightbulb.

As always, this volume is full of predictions. But this time there are two novelties. Each of the regular sections includes a feature called “Just possibly…”, to capture some of the wilder developments that probably won’t happen in 2011, but just might. And to mark our own 25th anniversary we include a special section in which guest contributors offer a glimpse of what the world might be like in 25 years’ time.

In a quarter-century of predicting, we have had our share of hits and misses. But an optimism about progress amid globalisation has been an abiding—and, we think, mostly accurate—theme. Despite the lingering hangover from the Great Recession, that sense of progress will hold true in 2011.