A recent survey by the World Economic Forum’s Network of Global Agenda Councils rated government lower than either business or media in its ability to respond to global challenges. On one level, this is understandable, given the plethora of challenges that governments face and the lack of long-term solutions to many problems that demand one. But, on another level, the attempt to rate government alongside business and the media is fundamentally misguided: no sector operates at the scale of responsibility, accountability, and expectation that governments do.