Has Davos lost its zeal?
After US President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Theresa May and other world leaders nixed plans to attend on the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, some began to assert that “Davos is in decline“
I’m of the alternative view. Being there up to now as a member of the participant’s support staff – patronizingly called by participants aware of their status as “sherpa” – I saw up close how much a handful of individuals sitting in a room and talking can do.
How philosopher and business ethicistI feel it’s value remembering a few of the history that was created on this rare alpine air and why Davos is still vital.
AP Photo/Michel Euler
The declared goal of the World Economic Forum – which we commonly consult with because the ski resort within the Swiss Alps where it’s held – is “improving the state of the world“
It does this through promotion global cooperation, multi-stakeholder capitalism AND public-private cooperation.
Many international agreements and breakthroughs have emerged from Davos. Examples include preventing war between Turkey and Greece within the Eighties helping to unravel the debt crisis within the euro zone in 2012 – the yr I used to be last there. It brought together world leaders as oppositional as those of South Africa Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk in 1992 i Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres in 1994 and 2001.
AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
But Davos doesn’t must make a breakthrough in an age-old conflict to be effective. This yr’s theme is: “Globalization 4.0”, served as a very important rebuke to the nationalists emerging in today’s world who’ve shown: contempt for multilateralism and preference for confrontation as a substitute of cooperation.
In fact, Very With sessions focusedas I feel they need to, next finding ways to cooperate solve the world’s burning problems.
And the world has lots to take care offrom deepening economic inequality and climate change to growing water scarcity. All have been discussed in Davos this yr.
Has there been a breakthrough? May not.
Davos cannot realistically be expected to unravel the world’s problems in lower than per week annually. But despite its elitist popularity, I feel it helps shift the main focus towards actually making the world higher for everybody – not only elite viewers.