World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda ’22

In News

• The theme-setting World Economic Forum (WEF) Agenda on the ‘State of the World’ will see government and corporate leaders talk about critical global challenges, with a special address by the Prime Minister ahead of the Davos meeting.

About

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international organization: headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
• It brings together: its membership of political and business leaders each year to discuss major issues that impact the global economy.
  • These include but are not limited to political, economic, social, and environmental concerns.
• Davos: The WEF is best known for its annual World Economic Forum Meeting at Davos, the Swiss ski resort.
  • The event regularly draws business and political leaders from around the world for a series of discussions about global issues.
• The WEF has no independent decision-making power: but seeks to influence powerful people to make decisions that benefit the global community.
• The organization is funded: through its own membership, which includes many prominent business and political figures.

Issues

• Networking hub rather than an intellectual nebula: While the WEF sees large-scale participation from industry, business leaders, civil society and international organizations each year, it has been criticized for being more of a networking hub than an intellectual nebula or a forum for finding effective solutions to global problems.
• Lack of representation: The platform, which provides an opportunity for collaboration through dialogue, is also criticized for the lack of representation of various sections of civil society and for not providing effective solutions.

Significance

• It influences public sector and corporate decision-making: particularly on issues of global importance such as poverty, social challenges, climate change and global economic recovery.
• Building economies: Closing the vaccine gap, building the resilience of global value chains in addition to building economies in fragile markets through humanitarian investment.
• It will also discuss data solutions: to prepare for the next pandemic.
• The environment and related issues: such as biodiversity destruction and human-made disasters dominate the WEF’s current list of most pressing global concerns.
• It will see the launch of other WEF initiatives: aimed at accelerating the mission on the economic opportunity of nature-positive solutions and on cyber-resilience.

Source: LM