What Should Be On The Agenda Of The World Economic Forum—Or Whatever Replaces It—A Decade From Now?
Value will only be created in sustainable forms in an era of globalization if there are global governance mechanisms worthy of the name. Worryingly, with challenges like terrorism and climate change pressing in, and with the United States eroding its muchvaunted “soft power” by the arrogant and—perhaps even worse—often incompetent use of “hard power,” the world now faces an increasingly dangerous governance vacuum. Various institutions, organizations, and countries are manoeuvring to fill the gap, among them the World Economic Forum, which in 2006
convened world leaders once again in Davos from 25 to 29 January. There is no doubting the extraordinary impact WEF makes, as the selection of initiatives in panel 1 suggests. But, despite all this moving and shaking, WEF cannot fill the governance vacuum. That, in bald headlines, is the conclusion of a survey we have carried out of experts in such areas as corporate responsibility and sustainable development 1.
Significantly, our respondents also place environmental challenges ahead of such issues as the control of both nuclear technology and weapons of mass destruction. At a time when a recalcitrant White House has had to be bludgeoned back into the UN climate-change conference negotiating Kyoto II and seems determined to play a disruptive role in such forums, this finding underscores the bankruptcy of much of what passes for foreign policy in the current Bush administration. It also raises the question of what sort of hangover we will all be suffering from in 2008 when Bush II—a regime which has shown astounding cynicism in its willingness to outsource and offshore torture and to risk the destabilization of other people’s climate patterns—finally reaches its expiry date.
See full Report, in pdf format.
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