Davos is little more than a global talk show
The world’s biggest talk show is on: the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 54th Annual Meeting at Davos began this Monday and ends on Friday. As in the past, this year too, the WEF conclave in the Swiss skiing resort, where they have been held for half a century, is being attended by a veritable who’s-who of business, politics and media.
The WEF website says more than 300 public figures will participate, including more than 60 heads of state and government, together with an estimated 1,600 business leaders, apart from chiefs of multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, etc. But a careful perusal of the list of attendees shows that the number of notable absentees has grown over the years.
Sure, business leaders still flock to Davos, but important politicians, who once made a beeline for it and without whom grandiose ideas of global cooperation remain a pipe-dream, are noticeably absent. Among the G7, only France and the EU are represented this year, the former by President Emmanuel Macron and the latter by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The US is represented by its Secretary of State Antony Blinken, while India has sent a 100-member delegation led by Smriti Irani, Union minister of women and child development. “At a time when global challenges require urgent solutions, innovative public-private collaboration is necessary to convert ideas into action," said Børge Brende, president of the WEF since 2017, on the eve of this January’s huddle.
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