Davos 2023 is the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) first in-person annual meeting since the start of the COVID pandemic. The yearly gathering sees business, political and civil society leaders convene in the Swiss mountain resort with academics, journalists and celebrities to discuss global economic agendas. Many regard it as essentially a forum for the wealthy, but the 2023 Davos summit has returned at “a critical inflection point for the world”, according to the WEF.
This year’s meeting slogan – Cooperation in a Fragmented World – nods to what the WEF’s recently published Global Risks Report calls the “polycrises” affecting our interconnected world. These intersecting crises range from climate change and energy shortfalls to food insecurity and forced migration. The WEF is calling for “bold collective action” to address them.
In the wake of COVID, many people seemed to be more aware of how vulnerable the world is to the excesses of economic production. UN secretary general, António Guterres, declared that we needed to build more “sustainable economies and societies”, and wider hopes abounded for greater global co-operation on human and environmental health.
