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Can Davos meet challenge of living up to stated ambitions?

Rebuilding trust, the theme of this year’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, is badly needed but needs to be more than talk

A protester in Davos ahead of the World Economic Forum. Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann / AFP via Getty Images

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Cantillon
Tue Jan 16 2024 - 06:00

The great and the good have gathered in the Alpine village of Davos once again for the annual jamboree that is the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting.

And, alongside it, another ritual — an annual report from Oxfam on the issue of global inequality.

Oxfam’s publication made a big play of the fact that the world’s five richest men had more than doubled their fortunes to €794 billion since 2020 at a time when the poorest 60 per cent of the world’s population ― almost five billion people ― became poorer.

Some of the difficulties inherent in these types of guesstimate valuations emerged in different reporting on the Oxfam release. The Guardian names the five as: Space X and Tesla founder Elon Musk who also owns the social platform now known as X; the founder of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Bernard Arnault; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle; and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. However, Reuters opts for legendary investor Warren Buffett over Zuckerberg. Of such trifles are feuds made.

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The bigger question for Davos is whether the coming together of some of the world’s most powerful individuals can deliver on the theme of this 54th such gathering ― Rebuilding Trust.

The World Economic Forum argues that its events have inspired change for over 50 years. Certainly, it has talked the talk. But for all the change over the last 50 years, is society now any fairer than it was in the early 1970s? Oxfam might argue that any change driven by the Davos gatherings has involved ring-fencing real power and prosperity for the WEF’s alumni and the businesses they run. It notes that a billionaire is now either running, or is the main shareholder of, seven out of 10 of the world’s biggest companies.

Certainly, inequality has rarely seemed as stark globally, or even within some of the richest states in the world, a division that is driving an increasingly dangerous trend of populism few would have considered remotely possible even 10 or 20 years ago.

The WEF has promised this week to focus on the fundamental principles driving trust ― including transparency, consistency and accountability. Good for it if it does. There is without doubt a need for trust, a new social contract.

But, for all its achievements over the past 50 years, few would characterise those running the event or the large majority of those who attend it as consistently committed either to transparency or accountability.

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