The World Economic Forum (WEF) just held its Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, under the theme ‘Rebuilding Trust’. The theme implies that there is a ‘trust deficit’. Trust is always needed between partners to foster cooperation and progress. It certainly also means that the weaker partners must have a fair degree of trust in the more powerful ones, or at least, they must accept that without cooperation they will be left out in the cold, with even less chance of gaining anything. Never mind, though, that if the weaker parties cooperate with the strong they also legitimise the overall rules, mainly set by the strong and powerful.
The themes of the 2024 Davos meeting, as well as earlier meetings, was in line with what the organization believes in, notably contact and cooperation amongst all. Whether the poor really has any reason to trust the rich, is another matter; they probably don’t. But Professor Klaus Schwab (85), the founding WEF chairman, has built the organization around that liberal idea, or naive, some would say. Others would say that it is disguising the truth, or beautifying it, because without disagreements and conflicts in the open, there cannot be real and true change and progress. The poor know that, but maybe they are not asked to speak at WEF in Davos? And if they were asked, they would have to say that they hardly believe in ‘rebuilding trust’.
Tareen, Dogar gear up for tough battle of ballots in NA-149 The economic philosophy of Schwab and WEF is capitalist, the going international economic system. Schwab believes in cooperation and dialogue with all, indeed the powerful, and taking into consideration current trends in world politics, economics and social development, now also including new communication technologies, alternative intelligence (AI), and the ‘fourth industrial revolution’. In many ways, |W|EF has been flowing with the tide and formulating concerns. This is evidenced his 2021 book entitled, ‘Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet’. He continues discussing cooperation issues in his 2022 book, authored with Thierry Malleret, entitled ‘The Great Narrative: For a Better Future’.
WEF’s social conscience was evidenced when Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde Schwab in 1998 founded an organization focusing on poor people and youth, especially in the developing countries. The organization was named the ‘Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship’. Schwab, a German with mixed Swiss-German lineage, studied engineering and economics in Germany and USA, and he was a professor of economics at the University of Geneva from 1972-2003, and has since been an emeritus professor there.
ATC acquits Marriyum Aurangzeb, Javed Latif in provocative talk case Now, it wasn’t quite my intention to discuss the WEF founder and chairman’s integrity and trustworthiness, but since he has been such a dominant figure in the otherwise impressive work of WEF, it also goes with the territory to raise a few critical questions. The philosophy and work of Schwab and WEF fall well under the mainstream political and economic thinking, led by the capitalist West. That is certainly also true for international cooperation generally, and indeed for international development aid. I have been part of that era and work in my academic and diplomatic career, and we all mostly went with flow even if we sometimes were critical, too. In recent decades, though, I have written about the half-hearted actions of the West in its post-colonial relations between what we today call the Global North towards the Global South, which we earlier termed the industrialized or developed countries, and the developing countries, sometimes also the underdeveloped countries, or the Third World.
IGP islamabad distribute commendation certificates Today, we know that development aid was never much more than a token, indeed when led by the World Bank, IMF, and related organizations, having clear conditionality demands when assisting poor countries and tying them to the rich countries and their economic and political thinking, indeed USA and Western Europe. In recent years, the BRICS has begun challenging that model, partly because a relative decline in the USA and Western Europe dominance, and the growth of China.
Ordinary people in rich and poor countries have little power to fight for their interests, less than before, I believe, because the socialist ideologies are not very popular, and because labour unions and other workers organizations are seen as left-wing. In some countries, religious organizations played important roles, indeed in South America, where the Catholic Church spoke up for the poor, and I believe it still does. We should always remember that all religions are not only for the life hereafter, but also for doing the will of God-Allah’s in this life. But politics is mainly for the politicians and the political parties, inspired by religious and other leaders; unfortunately, the mainstream social-democratic parties are slow in renewing themselves, in rebuilding trust and showing action.
President calls for edu emergency to enroll 26m out-of-school children In 2024, more than one third of the people in the world will be able to take part in general elections, including in Pakistan and many of the world’s largest countries. I hope that the politicians in all countries, with democracies at various degrees of strength and maturity, will do their utmost to ‘rebuild trust’ between the leaders and the voters. And that means standing up for ordinary and poor people, and ordinary people has a responsibility for keeping the leaders in line – otherwise there will be no real trust and development, neither for the rich nor the poor.
This year’s elections are important, but we must also have a longer term perspective, knowing that democracy can only be built, maintained and improved over time – everywhere in the world. That means that each one of us has a responsibility to participate, not only the leaders. Let us recall, too, that what we call the ‘old democracies’ are just a hundred or a hundred and fifty years old, in the West and later spreading to other places. We should realize that everywhere democracy needs to be improved. Today, that also means that he private sector and the multinational companies must play a much more positive role in development, pay taxes and make transfers to the poor countries, thus contributing to an inclusive international development model, regulated by the local and international democratic organizations and institutions. WEF cannot do much, but the United Nations and other multilateral organizations can. Rebuilding trust is urgent, or maybe it is not re-building, but actually building trust from the bottom – for a true inclusive development for all.
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Atle Hetland
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid. He can be reached at atlehetland@yahoo.com
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