Did You Miss it? World Economic Forum 2023

Leo Henry Global Writer

Around halfway through January, a group of government representatives and business magnates as well as a handful of other highprofile guests such as Keir Starmer, Elon Musk, and Greta Thunberg, (the latter calling on the energy industry to stop obstructing the path to clean energy along with a group of protestors) all of whom congregated in an alpine resort town in Switzerland for four days of discussions, meetings, pitches, and presentations.

At the time, it generated some attention in the mainstream press and on social media, but as the media cycle moved on the attention of many shifted to other things. But the 53rd Annual Meeting of the WEF in Davos had ramifications beyond being just another news story about a group of wealthy individuals toasting their good fortune with champagne and cigars.

The World Economic Forum is a meeting of key heads of state and governments, various geo-political deliberation groups, and foremost business committees, gathering in one place at one time to look at the global economy and using their collective insight to see if it couldn’t use a bit of tweaking. To clarify, this isn’t some sort of hyper-financial UN-like body, such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank – the WEF is more akin to, well, a forum - ideas are presented and discussed, information is exchanged and lines of communication between parties are forged or facilitated, with the end goal of driving some sort of action by getting enough people on the same page at the same time.

The list of challenges the Forum took upon themselves to tackle was not for the faint-hearted. A summary of the key issues begins with the war in Ukraine and its ramifications, and continues on to tackling global inflation, and top of the agenda, climate change and energy transition.

But what was the result? Surprisingly positive, with the final panel wrapping up the conference by concluding 2023 won’t be quite as bad as previously thought for the global economy, hallelujah for small victories. Ukraine’s allies renewed their commitment to delivering funds and financial backing to Kiev, as well as acknowledgement of the pressures and necessary restructuring of economies in the aftermath of Covid-19. Again, the full discussions are quite interesting and a good deal less pessimistic than you might think so I urge you to check them out – only a bit of it is indecipherable.