The World Economic Forum (WEF), holding its annual summit of leaders across the board of professions, emerged in the early seventies of last century. It positioned itself at the right of centre in the politico-economic spectrum and made no bones about it. It symbolised the neo-liberal ideology that had begun its ascendency at the time and was its most vocal champion with global leaders in politics, business, finance and academia blessing it with their overt and covert support. Ever since the first summit in 1972, the event sponsored by WEF has been a star-studded annual extravaganza, attended by the leading lights of world politics, economics, finance and cutting-edge technology. It was not so much what was discussed in the summit but the A-list of participants that riveted global attention on Davos for the few days that they graced the occasion. No other colloquium or international forum gained such a stellar celebrity status as WEF at Davos did because of the stature and importance of the participants.
The WEF summit at Davos had another distinction to its credit making it an exclusive event. It was only forum where public figures met, event appeared to rub their shoulders with leaders of the private sectors including captains of industry, CEOs of business, financial wizards and giants of the tech world. For this distinction alone, it stood out among the plethora of multilateral and international organisations that sprouted after the second world war, ostensibly for promotion of global cooperation in the areas of peace, security and economic growth. Its importance and significance ascended as the process of globalisation gathered momentum. In fact, WEF at Davos became the iconic poster of globalisation and its unabashed publicist. It was a clever move, some even sniggered describing the event as a ploy, that glorified the private sector by bracketing it with the public sector, with the designation of the hyphenated name of public-private partnership (PPP). Under the guise of collaboration between the two sectors the neo-liberal ideology of globalisation was cleverly promoted. It was an ingenuous move to placate the critique of free market and private enterprise, giving the critics assurance of reining in runway private sector overwhelming the public one. In its broad framework even non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and philanthropies were also accommodated, giving these a role in globalisation.
But discreet tactics in selecting participants from a broad spectrum of professions and crafting an agenda to include issues as diverse as global gross domestic product (GDP) growth to environmental protection did not disarm and silence all its detractors and virulent opponents. To members of organisations representing green movement and gender equality the WEF was and is a wolf in sheep's clothing, camouflaging its real intentions viz. to spread the tentacles of corporate capitalism exploiting world's resources for the benefit of the top one per cent of the world population. Because of this realisation every WEF summit has witnessed the unfurling of maximum security blanket around the venue where the dignitaries gathered making them hermetically sealed from the 'trouble makers'. With demonstrations and agitations by protesters hidden from view, the summit at Davos managed to go through the agenda without any hitch, bolstering confidence among the organisers and giving a sense of historical importance to the august participants. But this year's summit was different, it was not business as usual at Davos, not because of lack of skill of the organisers but because events in the outside world had overtaken them. For one thing, most of the global leaders who were regular participants were conspicuous by their absence. Even Bill Gates, a regular fixture in the summit, was nowhere around. Richard Attenborough, the celebrated naturalist, appeared like a lone figure with his exhortation for preservation of ecology echoing a cry in wilderness. Not only the absence of prominent figures in the summit, the overall change of atmosphere at Davos during the WEF summit was palpable because of the overwhelming sense of disconnect with the outside world. The only constant with the past was the landing of scores of private jets at Davos airport carrying CEOs of business and finance keeping up the panoply of spectacle associated with the tradition of the annual event.
The WEF summit at Davos this year had little to be cheerful about for a more important reason. Globalisation, that had come under attack from civil society for quite some time in recent years was now subjected to more virulent criticism even by its former champions like America. President Trump's 'America First' slogan and recent actions to walk the talk, particularly in trade, not only question the ethos of globalisation but threaten to erode its very foundation. His protectionist measures through higher tariff against imports from China, Europe, Canada and other countries has rekindled the fear of global recession through a vicious trade war. The other decisions by President Trump to wind down American role in various multilateral institutions seem poised to undermine them in the near future. This isolationist policy, running counter to the globalisation process has conflated or coincided with the rising tide of nationalism and populism in America and in some European countries. Behind this 'winter of discontent' as articulated by the populist segment of population in the countries mentioned above is the widespread awareness that globalisation has not only benefitted the few but also accentuated inequality between countries and among different classes of people within the countries. In this backdrop of shifting opinion it has been increasingly felt that WEF has failed to promote policies conducive to equitable distribution of benefit from globalisation and to promote decisions by political and business leaders to mitigate its undesirable consequences. The idea that WEF is a club of the rich gossiping and relaxing with a glass of champagne and engage in small talks has gained ground. The failure to influence policy making within government and corporate bodies for the benefit of the majority has not only undermined the importance of the summit at Davos but also threatens to make it irrelevant in world affairs.
In its defence WEF spokesperson can point out that in recent years the summit had agenda which included the issue of growing inequality and the menacing crisis of climate change. In response, critics can promptly point out that those were merely pious wishes without any impact on policy makers either in the public or private sector. Since very little has been done in respect of mitigating, not to speak of preventing, these burning issues WEF in Davos can not claim any success in influencing policy making in these areas. Even the CEOs who paid lip service to reducing inequality have been in no mood to reduce their hefty earnings, including huge bonus.
It is strange that in the face of the lacklustre performance in respect of the major problems facing the world, the agenda for the last summit of WEF almost bypassed the two most acute problems viz. inequality and climate change and instead focused on the challenge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the form of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) . Granted, these are likely to aggravate inequality and as such need to be addressed urgently. But any such measure takes care of the existing problem of growing inequality and worsening climate change. It is this myopic and almost sanitised academic approach to global crises that will make WEF at Davos even more irrelevant. Clearly, WEF at Davos is badly in need of inventing a role for itself in order to have credibility. For this it has only to take into account the most pressing economic issues that assail the global economy and encourage leaders of government and the private sectors to commit themselves to policy changes that are in tune with the urgent need of the time. If any organisation ever faced an existential crisis for failure to rise to occasion the WEF at Davos is in the unenviable position of being one at present.