Special Edition: World Economic Forum, Davos 2024

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and advocacy organization based in Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a German engineer and economist, the Forum is best known for its annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland.

WEF meetings bring together business leaders, international political leaders, economists, celebrities, and journalists for up to four days to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, including the global economy, health, and the environment. The WEF aims to improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas. The Forum also conducts research and generates a variety of reports. We will be highlighting these reports released as part of the 2024 event below. The WEF is financed by its membership, which includes 1,000 member companies.

Key Themes

1. Global Economic Trends: An important topic to discuss is the current state of the global economy, including trends in trade, investment, and economic growth. Assessments of risks and opportunities in emerging markets are often highlighted.
2. Sustainability and Climate Change: The World Economic Forum places a significant emphasis on sustainability and addressing climate change. Discussions around innovative strategies for green economies and sustainable development are central.
3. Fourth Industrial Revolution: The impact of rapid technological advances, including artificial intelligence, robotics, and the Internet of Things, is a recurring theme. The implications for economies, jobs, and societies are critical points of discussion.
4. Global Health Concerns: The Forum often addresses global health issues, including pandemics and healthcare systems' resilience. The importance of global cooperation in managing health crises can be a key topic of conversation.
5. Inequality and Social Justice: Addressing global and regional disparities in wealth, opportunity, and access to resources is a crucial part of the WEF's agenda. Discussions may focus on strategies to reduce inequality and promote social justice globally.

Economic Growth & Trade Highlights

1. The Global Risks Report 2024 warned of the risks that could pose future economic shocks while the latest Chief Economists Outlook revealed a global economy fraught with uncertainty as well as potential bright spots; two-thirds of economists surveyed said industrial policies may be successful in reviving growth, while generative AI was seen to increase productivity and innovation.
2. The Future of Growth Initiative is a two-year campaign to help policymakers and economists exchange new ideas and best practices on achieving this balance, supported by the Future of Growth Report 2024 that presents a multidimensional framework to balance GDP with innovation, resilience, sustainability, and inclusion.
3. The TradeTech Global initiative outlined a vision for collaborative use of technology for global commerce to unlock trillions in trade, ahead of a major Trade Tech Forum alongside the WTO global ministerial in February 2024.
4. More than 20 trade, finance and environment ministers came together through the Coalition of Trade Ministers on Climate to identify a common agenda for sustainable growth within and across economies. Fifteen investment promotion agency heads representing 1.8 billion citizens called for a Climate FDI Coalition to help investment agencies channel climate finance commitments into tangible domestic green growth projects.
5. The Forum published new data on current trends in the fintech industry. The Future of Industrial Strategies initiative released a paper that sheds light on new industrial policy trends and opportunities.

Climate, Nature & Energy Highlights

1. The First Movers Coalition for Industry has grown to almost 100 companies, providing the world’s largest demand signal for breakthrough climate technologies in high emission industry sectors, such as steel and cement.
2. The First Movers Coalition for Food has launched with 30 partners to aggregate procurement demand for low-emission agricultural commodities and speed up the adoption of sustainable farming, innovations, and transitional funding.
3. 1t.org, the World Economic Forum’s trillion trees platform, announced over 100 companies pledging to conserve, restore and grow 12 billion trees.
4. The Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders stepped up efforts to reduce Scope 3 emissions, and underscored 10 high-impact measures for governments and businesses in its annual report.
5. The Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA) initiative announced new commitments to unlock billions of dollars to finance climate and nature solutions. It also announced a new Big Bets Accelerator to accelerate innovative public-private-philanthropic partnerships and a corporate philanthropy challenge.
6. The Global Commission on Nature-Positive Cities presented new guidelines for rehabilitating nature in the urban context, kicking off a public consultation process to establish a shared definition of the attributes that make a city nature-positive and a set of common metrics to track progress towards them.
7. The new Network to Mobilize Clean Energy Investment for the Global South was launched to provide a platform for developing economies to raise awareness about their clean energy needs, share best practices and sustainably accelerate their energy transitions, helping to unlock an estimated $2.2-2.8 trillion needed for the energy transition, according to a new report.
8. The Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) welcomed Colombia, the Philippines and Zambia, bringing the network of national action partnerships to 15.
9. The Transforming Energy Demand report outlined actions for businesses and countries to enhance energy management, efficiency, and carbon-intensity reduction. The International Business Council and the Centre for Energy and Materials will support the creation of cross-sectoral accelerator partnerships and policies in the key energy demand areas of industry, buildings, and transportation.
10. France, China, and the US joined the Transitioning Industrial Clusters initiative to drive economic growth, employment, and the energy transition. The Transitioning Industrial Cluster Annual Report highlighted their pivotal role in transforming energy demand and enhancing regional competitiveness.
11. Several other new energy reports were published, including on securing minerals for the energy transition and on a roadmap for green hydrogen adoption in India, as well as a shared aspirations statement from the ASEAN Leaders for Just Energy Transition.
12. More cities announced they are using the Global New Mobility Coalition’s scorecard tool to help benchmark progress toward more sustainable and inclusive mobility. The latest city to adopt the tool is Mendoza, Argentina, which aims to create mobility hubs and install more EV charging stations.
13. A new report quantified the effect of climate change on human health

AI & Its Governance Highlights

1. The AI Governance Alliance announced a new global effort to increase AI access by improving data quality and availability across nations, boosting access to computational resources, and adapting foundation models to suit local needs and challenges, releasing three papers on tackling AI governance challenges, and shaping responsible and inclusive practices.
2. Four new centers joined the network for the Centre of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with a center in Germany to focus on public sector digital transformation, a center in Viet Nam to focus on green growth, and a center in Qatar to focus on sustainable development and economic competitiveness. The Forum also signed a letter of intent with Ukraine to launch a center with a focus on digital transformation of government and digital literacy.
3. The EDISON Alliance announced it has improved the lives of 784 million people through 320 initiatives across 127 countries on affordable and accessible digital solutions in education, financial services and healthcare, reaching 78% towards its 2025 target of improving1 billion lives
4. The Global Lighthouse Network announced 21 Lighthouses, and four Sustainability Lighthouses, that are employing advanced technologies and innovative approaches to boost productivity and sustainability in their operations.
5. The new Digital Healthcare Transformation Initiative will accelerate public-private collaboration around digital health, data and artificial intelligence.
6. The Schwab Foundation’s Global Alliance launched its Artificial Intelligence for Social Innovation initiative to allow faster and more responsible adoption of AI for impact, especially in the Global South.
7. Supported by nearly 140 partners, the Global Collaboration Village demonstrated the potential of next-generation technology to drive sustainable change and shape a hopeful future.
8. The Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2024 report was launched, highlighting key solutions to tackle cyber inequity and the profound impact of emerging technologies,
9. A new report on innovations in quantum computing showed how to mitigate new, complex risks posed by emerging technologies.
10. The Alliance for Urban Innovation announced the opening of applications for its first cohort of pioneer cities, which will work with Forum partners and world-leading innovators to advance more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable communities.
11. The Forum’s Global Community of Chief Operating, Supply Chain and Procurement Officers committed to a new effort to support SMEs accelerate the adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies to realize global goals for growth, sustainability and resiliency.
12. UpLink, the Forum’s open innovation platform, announced that it has raised CHF 37 million ($43 million) in funding through to 2027 to help early-stage impact entrepreneurs scale their people- and planet-focused ventures.

People, Equity & Human Development

1. The Reskilling Revolution initiative announced that it reached more than 680 million people with opportunities for improving skills, jobs and education. The Philippines, Viet Nam and Qatar have joined a growing network of 20 Country Accelerators focusing on human capital investments.
2. Jobs Consortium members endorsed the World Economic Forum’s Jobs Initiative to develop lighthouses of generative AI-driven job transitions in 2024, and the Forum released a paper on large language models and jobs.
3. The Forum announced new Skills-First Lighthouses while the Good Work Alliance, a coalition of businesses across 15 industries is setting ambitious targets to provide good working conditions to about 2.5 million workers.
4. The Refugee Employment Alliance has hired over 54,000 refugees globally in the last two years and aligned on pathways to deliver on the commitment to hire 125,000 additional refugees by the end of 2027.
5. The Gender Parity Sprint is a new coalition of business, international organizations and government leaders committing to accelerating economic parity by 2030 within their leadership, supply chains and wider communities, complemented by national efforts in nearly 15 Country Accelerators. The 2024 edition of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lighthouses provides case studies for embedding equity in the workplace.
6. The Government of India launched the “Alliance for Global Good – Gender Equity and Equality” as part of Prime Minister Modi’s commitment to inclusive growth and building on the foundations of the G20 presidency, supported by the World Economic Forum.
7. Over 35 organizations developed the Longevity Economy Principles to support healthy, prosperous and resilient long lives.
8. The Global Alliance for Women’s Health announced 42 organizations have collectively pledged $55 million to improve women’s health outcomes worldwide; the Closing the Women’s Health Gap report shows that addressing the women’s health gap could potentially boost the global economy by at least $1 trillion annually by 2040.
9. The Equitable Transition Initiative, launched at the Annual Meeting 2024, will address equity challenges across sectoral and geographical green transitions, based on a new framework in a white paper.
10. The Schwab Foundation announced the winners of the Social Innovation Awards 2024, which recognized 16 organizations that represent a diverse group of entrepreneurs and innovators who are driving the change needed to create a more sustainable, inclusive future. The Schwab Foundation’s Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship launched the Rise Ahead Pledge to support the building of a more just, sustainable and equitable world and meet the $1.125 trillion needed to fund social innovation globally.
11. Global Shapers implemented over 2,400 local projects, directly improving the lives of more than 2 million people and reaching over 12 million stakeholders globally, and announced an Innovation Prize to empower next-generation change-makers.

Trust & Cooperation Highlights

1. The Forum’s new Global Cooperation Barometer showed that global cooperation has been resilient for much of the past decade, particularly in the areas of trade and capital, innovation and technology, and climate and natural capital, but has been pulled down by a sharp decline in cooperation on peace and security. A new white paper offered diverse ideas on what global cooperation can look like.
2. The Humanitarian and Resilience Investing initiative announced over 50 commitments that will boost impact investment and could unlock over $15 billion, with new collaborations driving purpose-driven investment in frontier markets.
3. The World Economic Forum, House of Switzerland and Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs launched the Global Foresight Network to support a global community of practice across public and private sectors to serve as an incubator to advance future preparedness.
4. The Faith in Action report spotlighted examples of businesses partnering with faith-based groups to support vulnerable populations and address the world’s interconnected crises.
5. The Forum announced it will hold a special meeting, hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on “Global Cooperation, Growth and Energy for Development” on 28-29 April 2024 in Riyadh.

Source: World Economic Forum, Public Affairs office communication.