It’s that time of the year again. As a creative force of collaboration to find solutions for some of the most critical challenges of the community, the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings at Davos have few parallels.
This year is going to be no different with around 50 global heads of state expected to participate. As per media reports, the power list from India includes Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath and billionaire businessmen Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani.
As the pandemic, geopolitical instability and climate change continues to disrupt businesses and individuals alike, the theme of the 2023 meeting – ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World’ – could not have come at a more propitious time. The once-in-a-100 year pandemic accentuated hunger, suffering and deaths to a level that the world had not seen since the world war. It pushed several people, especially in the developing world, into poverty.
What the pandemic thrust on the vulnerable perhaps would be insignificant when compared to the potential impact of climate change on their lives and livelihoods. Similarly, geopolitical fractures are unlikely to just impact the warring factions and their citizens but the global population at large. In a connected world, the impact of war has already led to supply chain bottlenecks and spiralling inflation.
Inflation, which is also partly due to high liquidity in the system, has now put the world on the throes of a recession. That would directly translate into more hardships for the poor. What’s worse, geopolitics also threatens globalization, which has been the force of growth for not only the developed West but has also improved lives in the Global South.
Recovering from a pandemic and trying to thwart the impact of climate change has been tough. But geopolitical cracks and a resurgent nationalism is something the planet can ill afford. Cooperation, therefore, is really the need of the hour and WEF could not have found a better agenda to hinge its discussions on.
It’s the responsibility of the power elite at the WEF to build, establish and drive that cooperation between the community, the environment and economic growth so that the planet and the people thrive, despite disruptions. There are multiple dimensions to this cooperation.
Evaluating the dimensions of cooperation
While mounting nationalism, lust for power and dominance guide geopolitics but little effort appears to have been made within the multilateral framework to tie in the warring factions. They need to back down and the G20 could perhaps take the lead in helping Russia and Ukraine blow the peace pipe to begin with. Though issues at hand are complicated, it should be clear to everyone that there cannot be development without peace.
Even as we move towards adoption of non-conventional energy resources and green hydrogen, we need to ensure that ‘climateflation’ does not upset the applecart. The transition needs to be gradual. Besides, it needs to guarantee energy security for the developing world.
Similarly, when it comes to the environment, the world should stop pushing itself into silos of driving sustainability through either a blue economy or a green economy. They need to ensure that all the colours of the rainbow combine to protect the ecology and the environment. Climate related risks are heightened and sustainability was never so critical
Healthcare is clearly what every nation needs and yet even in the 21st century many parts of the world do not have access to life-saving drugs and vaccines. The pandemic exposed the extent of selfishness of the developed West, when they refused to share Covid-19 vaccines with those in the Global South. That attitude continues as they refuse to provide patent waiver on life-saving Covid-19 therapies and diagnostics. Even in vaccines, developed countries have largely blocked the sharing of recipes for manufacturing next-generation shots.
At the WEF, pharmaceutical majors and other stakeholders could perhaps unite to agree to open up patents for Covid-19 therapeutics and diagnostics for a limited period, so that these can be produced and sold at a fraction of the cost, in developing countries - particularly Africa - which houses a majority of the world’s poor. Providing therapeutic equity and saving lives could perhaps be the biggest success of this edition of the WEF.
Intent, discussions and strategic direction of the power elite notwithstanding, the WEF also needs to show the path on how the use of technology could ease some of the burden and drive connections in a fractious world. Take for instance what Elon Musk's satellites - Starlink - have done to ensure people continue to be connected in Ukraine even when all other services were disrupted. Some of that could perhaps come out of the CSR budgets of technology companies.
Besides the government and companies, civil society also has its work cut out. Building connections in a fragmented world is not the job of an institution alone. Everyone needs to play a part. Stakeholders need to grow beyond cooperation and now develop real connectedness.
Hopefully, the intellectual heat that the Swiss Alpine ski resort generates over the 5-day discussions attended by both heads of state and global corporate czars, outweighs the carbon footprint of their business jets.
The writer, a 12th Grade student, is passionate about the environment and sustainability and writes occasionally on issues around climate change.