Just as 2016 epitomized a year of retreating from external commitments in favour of enhanced nationalism, the 2017 World Economic Forum (WEF) boldly seeks to push the global cooperation framework. In this it adopted a United Nation's approach of collecting global problems and building a global agenda to correct them, much as we saw with the Millennium Developmental Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Global Goals (SDGs).
All of those have been captured in the "Responsive and Responsible Leadership" theme. It recognizes "that frustrated and discontent are increasing in the segments of society that are not experiencing economic development and social progress," and the uncertainty unleashed "the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its impact on future employment." With responsive and responsible leadership, it seeks "a deeper commitment to including development and equitable growth, both nationally and globally."
The intentions and objectives directly and aptly hit the spot, though outcomes may fall short (as a future Scopus article this year will show with equitable growth), since the 14 future "challenges" and six "agendas" demand more attention, engagement, and promotion.
Those 14 future challenges include the following: consumption; digital economy and society; economic growth and social inclusion; education, gender, and work; energy; environment and natural resource security; financial and monetary systems; food security and agriculture; health and healthcare; information and entertainment; international trade and investment; long-term investing, infrastructure, and development; mobility; and production.
In what reads like a list of an emerging/developed country's ministries and secretaries, so be it. What is at stake is to bring them out of their nationalistic shells into a global playground, in other words, more cooperative approaches to satisfying domestic needs. Multiple recent reasons motivate this move: there is a huge shift towards building domestic infrastructures that demand global resources; many of the challenges now brook transnational or supranational contours; and both consumption and production convergences have taken huge global-network forms that they need global rules and regulations.
Interestingly, consumption patterns begin the list, while production counterparts end the list. At no time have these been more global than right now, but also their unstoppable growth invokes several other economic, social, and political sectors that must now be treated as a whole rather than as parts. If that is a huge endorsement of the neo-liberal order that unfolded dramatically after the Cold War ended in the late 1980s, then the private sector is not only being boosted in no uncertain terms, but also pushed into a private-public partnership (PPP) mode for the first time because the "whole" cannot be addressed efficiently without such an approach.
Both the public and private sectors must now engage over the six agendas stipulated: the global (specifically governance so that inputs flow freely to help production centres process outputs for quick consumption); the international security (including both defence and intelligence collaboration); the economic (to shift development towards sustainable trajectories); the regional and national (in essence, to promote informal transactions across national boundaries); the industry and business (to largely harness the necessary infrastructures of the Fourth Industrial Revolution); and the future (to basically encourage innovations to suit the changing times).
That is no less breathtaking a mission than the MDG and SDG campaigns, and quite necessarily so: necessary as an initiative at a time of socio-economic and socio-political droughts; necessary as a blueprint and guideline; and necessary as an incentive against fraying collaborative efforts globally. It is most necessary as emerging countries must complete the colossal infrastructural investments already underway to transit into highly developed echelons, and to resuscitate developed countries from sclerotic economic growth: without these two broad outcomes over the next 10-20 years, the entire global edifice is set to crumble. As it is, many countries of the world, including Bangladesh, have independently developed "visions" embracing the next 10-20 years: abandoning them or chipping chunks off of them may be more costly than not attending them right away. Even more imperatively, both emerging and developed countries need urgently to work together to contain illegitimate threats to their progress, either from terroristic groups or climate-change related developments, to be able to nourish and nurture their huge accomplishments of the past.
However we interpret WEF initiatives, intentions, and participants, the time is not just ripe but also urgent to each country to put on their cooperative gear. For Bangladesh this means an equal dispensation of its infrastructural projects and restraint from any particular group-alignments. It also means transforming antiquated or idiosyncratic laws into globally relevant and vibrant counterparts, not just with trade and investment, but also border, customs, and taxation, as well as intellectual property rights, environmental safeguards, and health certification. Getting our own act together could become the most effective stimulant for countries with no- or low-growth to follow suit.
Dr. Imtiaz A. Hussain is Professor & Head of the newly-built Department of Global Studies & Governance at Independent University, Bangladesh.
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