Global Courant
Next week in Switzerland, representatives of governments and international organizations, billionaires and major entrepreneurs, experts and academics, NGOs and press corps will once again settle in the Graubunden winter sports resort in Davos.
Under the motto ‘Rebuilding Trust’, the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) will start on January 15 with the aim of putting ‘the basic principles of trust’ – transparency, coherence and responsibility – on the agenda.
But the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has seemingly further polarized and divided societies, as well as new conflicts around the world, could make it difficult to rebuild trust in institutions. And today, the relevance of the WEF itself is often questioned.
The number of visitors to the annual meeting has decreased in recent years. Important names such as US President Joe Biden are missing. In 2023, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was the only leader of a G7 country in attendance.
However, this year appears to be off to a more positive start, with more political and economic power brokers expected to be present – especially those who could potentially play a crucial role in major global conflicts.
“Leaders are not losing interest in forums like the WEF, but they are making strategic decisions about whether it would be useful to attend the meeting every year,” Peter Willetts, emeritus professor of global politics at City, University of London, told IPS. , to Al Jazeera.
“Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to rally support for Ukraine, which will likely mean the Russians will send a low-level political delegation.”
Willetts added that the United States is expected to send a delegation consisting of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NSA Jake Sullivan and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry – President Joe Biden’s top negotiator on climate change.
In addition, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian are also expected to attend this week.
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum will take place in Davos from January 15 to 19, 2024 (Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)
Creating communities
Despite unanswered questions about war and peace, a slowing global economy and a growing social divide, Davos is still seen as an opportunity to mitigate factors leading to global conflict, experts say.
“The WEF has certainly been an important force in promoting ideas about public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder collaboration in response to global challenges,” Jan Aart Scholte, professor of global transformations and governance challenges at Leiden University, told Al Jazeera.
While the G7 and other summits are all about tough negotiations or achieving results, the WEF has always been a platform for the exchange of ideas.
“The WEF’s approach to tackling problems is guided by a commitment to what is called ‘multi-stakeholder governance’, which means that the world’s problems are best addressed by the diverse stakeholders affected by them,” Jack Copley, assistant professor of international political economy at the University of Durham, told Al Jazeera.
So the basis of the WEF’s activities is less about creating events and more about creating communities. It provides an arena for connection and discussion between some of the world’s most important decision makers.
Since its inception, the WEF has provided a space for building communities of political and business leaders, experts and civil society representatives, observers say. The real value of the event lies in this intense focus on networking and gaining knowledge about the state of the world. And it has been instrumental in facilitating such exchanges, although perhaps not to the standards that the WEF often claims.
“Like all political forums, the World Economic (Forum) formulates its objectives in over-optimistic, general terms,” Willetts noted. “That said, it has been a useful forum for some world leaders to have group discussions during formal meetings and informal, one-on-one discussions outside meetings and over drinks or meals.
“What has also been helpful is the diversity of the people who attended – from leading national politicians and UN officials to business leaders and the staff of major non-governmental organizations.”
Tackling disinformation
According to the WEF’s Global Risks Report for 2024, misinformation and disinformation will be the biggest threat to the world over the next two years. In second and third place: extreme weather conditions and the political polarization of society.
A primary factor contributing to disinformation is artificial intelligence (AI), which the latter can produce en masse, at lightning speed and in a deceptively “real” way. However, so far, solutions to this challenge are scarce. The European Union recently reached a preliminary decision agreement on the regulation of AI, but there is no broad global regulation or general rulebook.
“It is clearly critical to assess and address the impacts of AI, and the WEF would be remiss to neglect this topic,” Scholte noted. “However, it remains to be seen whether the WEF can contribute anything distinctive – and how well it communicates and collaborates with other initiatives in this area.”
Besides disinformation, other issues that will raise questions in 2024 are the weakening global economy, inflation and a potential recession.
“The global economy faces many risks in 2024,” Copley noted. “There are threats to global production and trade from war – from the economic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the regional consequences of Israel’s destruction of Gaza. There is the ongoing battle against inflationary pressures that have arisen in recent years. Central banks have tried to use monetary policy tightening to control inflation without causing a major crisis in the financial system and without causing such economic pain as to trigger political unrest.”
“There is also the longer-term problem of slowing Chinese growth and the relative stagnation of the global economy as a whole, as well as high debt burdens in many southern economies such as Argentina. And of course, the worsening climate crisis will cause increasing disruption to economic activity.”
The goal is missing
At the same time, Copley thinks this year’s WEF may miss the mark in some respects. “This year’s agenda doesn’t propose anything particularly creative. You could have put things in a more challenging way: for example, in terms of building peace rather than achieving security; debating the concept of growth rather than taking its desirability for granted; looking beyond climate policy to larger debates about the ecological viability of the prevailing world order.”
The lack of results would be welcomed by critics who have never believed that the WEF makes the world a better place – even though it likes to claim so for itself.
“The WEF and other multi-stakeholder efforts have democratic shortcomings when the people they influence do not have sufficient opportunities to participate in and monitor their processes,” Scholte said.
“It is an exclusive, invitation-only club, and meaningful participation is primarily limited to the world’s more powerful governments, corporations and civil society actors. Furthermore, when excluded people disagree with the WEF’s activities or feel harmed by the WEF’s activities, they generally lack adequate channels to be heard and seek redress.”
This status quo, and the idea that a ‘global elite’ makes decisions for the common man, has been fodder for several conspiracy theorists, fueling fears of secret circles seeking a world order of their own choosing. “Some of the criticism of the WEF has been quite fantastic, such as claims that the WEF is part of a global cabal that runs world affairs,” Copley said. “These conspiracies appear to have accelerated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
There will certainly be discussion at the WEF this week about its relevance and legacy.
“Whether or not the WEF has been successful in its current iteration depends on how you interpret its objectives,” Copley noted. “It has certainly succeeded in bringing together a range of business and political elites from different parts of the world to discuss pressing issues in a luxurious environment, and it has produced a variety of reports and public-private initiatives. Some of these initiatives have had concrete impacts on real-world issues, such as the vaccination campaign,” Copley concluded.
“But the real impact of the WEF lags behind the lofty statements.”
