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OPINION: Is Davos still relevant?

Davos offers a platform where economic, political and social currents are up for discussion by people who influence them the most.

Belinda O’Donnell
Tue, 27 Jan 2015

OPINION

In 2015, much of the media coverage of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos has been tinged with derision.

Analysts have quipped that Davos, which concluded its four-day programme on Saturday, is where the world’s business and political elites go to “take a vacation from skiing and tell everyone else what to do.” 

The visual imagery of fleets of private jets relaying heads of state and chief executives to a runway among the mountains of Switzerland has not been received well by observers.

It has led to Davos being labeled as a gathering that is “achingly lacking in awareness” when it comes to the realities, rather than the talking points, of issues ranging from income inequality to conflict and climate change. 

At a discussion on the future of the digital economy on Thursday, a panel of tech CEOs raised the point that data access in the US costs $1 a day, a number that is equal to the entirety of what many people in the world currently live on.

This fact deserves attention, yet there is something about attempting to address the negative impacts of inequality that falls flat when those discussions are held in a setting of such conspicuous prosperity.

The dissonance between the expenses of the panelists attending the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Switzerland and the lived experiences of the men and women facing the globalised challenges on the Davos agenda is jarring. 

It is essential to recognise the limitations of Davos but it is also important not to overlook what the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum offers – a platform where the global economic, political and social currents affecting us all are up for discussion by many of the people who influence them the most. 

Davos is still relevant because it provides a window into the issues that keep Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandburg up at night as she shapes the future of one of the world’s most significant information sharing platforms.

It allows South Africa’s President to ask Prime Minister John Key to prioritise understanding African conflicts as New Zealand gets into the swing of its term on the UN Security Council.

Davos fast-tracks the exchange of ideas and approaches to globalised challenges by many of the people whose actions will be most decisive in shaping the answers to key challenges, such as how we will shape cities which are livable, sustainable and connected.

The influence and reach of the heads of state, CEOs, artists, academics and activists that made up the panels and audiences at Davos will keep the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum relevant.

However in 2015, power is more diffuse now than it has ever been. Perhaps Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, captured this dynamic best when he told a packed audience at Davos, “Just wire them up and citizens will take care of a lot.”

The 2500 delegates who met at the World Economic Forum do not have a monopoly on formulating answers to the questions that matter in Davos. All people have a stake in finding solutions to the challenges generated by issues like rapid growth of information technology, climate change, security and financial regulation.

These challenges have a tendency to jump borders, and they will continue to be relevant to everyone from Auckland to Amsterdam and Accra. 

Belinda O’Donnell is a New Zealander who writes on international politics and security. She is on twitter at @brjodonnell

Belinda O’Donnell
Tue, 27 Jan 2015
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OPINION: Is Davos still relevant?
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