International Futures (IFs) Country Groupings

Kwasi, S., Stone, B., Nawar, S. (2025, February 26). "International Futures (IFs) Country Groupings." Working paper 2025.02.26. Pardee Institute for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, University of Denver, Denver, CO.

Countries are grouped for various purposes, including research, forecasting, strategic planning, comparability, representation, advocacy, cultural identity, and policymaking. Regional, continental, strategic, and economic classifications of countries provide a valuable framework for understanding and analyzing global dynamics and play a critical role in economic and human development modeling used to forecast future outcomes. However, there is no universal agreement on how certain groups and their memberships should be defined. This lack of consensus has far-reaching implications, affecting development efforts, international cooperation, and policy decisions designed to address shared challenges and opportunities effectively.

To address this lack of standardization and the absence of published comprehensive justifications, the Pardee Institute for International Futures at the University of Denver has created its own set of country groupings for use in the International Futures (IFs) modeling tool. The Institute’s classifications are based on the United Nations Statistical Division’s (UNSD) M49 system but include additional research and justifications for specific country placements considered to be boundary cases. For countries where classifications have discrepancies or are controversial across multinational organizations, universities, or governments, we determine their grouping in IFs based on a thorough analysis of the country’s geographical, historical, political, strategic, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic characteristics to justify their classification.