NO NEW IDEAS FROM DAVOS, NO ACTION FROM PORTO ALEGRE

By Roberto Savio and - - Reprint | | Print |

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ROME, Jun 1 2006 (IPS) - Despite its current openness to new issues, no one today expects ideas and proposals from the World Economic Forum or anything more than the great opportunity for socialising it offers its participants, writes Roberto Savio, president emeritus of IPS news agency and a member of the International Council of the World Social Forum. In this article, the author writes that only corporations with income of over one billion dollars are invited to the WEF, which means that businesses from the developing world are sharply under-represented. And despite its name, the WEF is dominated by Europeans, Americans, and Japanese: in 2002, 75 percent of attendees were from Europe and the US. Just 7.7 percent of the forum were from Asia, home to 60 percent of the global population. While participation in the World Social Forum has reached unprecedented levels, topping 100,000 participants, it has entered a crisis of growth and identity and perhaps a transition to new forms. Davos and Porto Alegre are both separate actors and at the same time symptoms of their respective worlds. The WEF has the power but faces a crisis of legitimacy. The WSF represents the eruption of a new phase of idealism and commitment in the world.

Each year, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), executives from the world’s richest corporations, political leaders, intellectuals, and journalists meet in Davos, Switzerland — about 2000 people in all.

The WEF, founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, Swiss professor of business politics, is according to its supporters the ideal occasion for representatives of the world’s major political and economic organisations to debate the great problems of the day.

About 600 journalists attend and have access to the majority of the sessions. Though most of the participants come from the world of politics and transnational corporations, certain major NGOs also participate, such as Amnesty International, Transparency International, and Oxfam, as well as union and religious leaders.

Opponents of the WEF hold that in reality the meeting is no more than a business forum where corporations can network and lobby and where the true goal is boosting profits and definitely not reducing poverty

Despite its name, the WEF is dominated by Europeans, Americans, and Japanese: in 2002, 75 percent of attendees were from Europe (39 percent) and the US (36 percent), which constitute a mere 17 percent of the world’s population. In contrast, a mere 7.7 percent of the forum were from Asia, home to 60 percent of the global population. Only those corporations with income of over one billion dollars are invited, which means that businesses from the developing world are sharply under-represented.

NGOs are present because the WEF has tried to open up a dialogue with its opponents. But two NGOs, Friends of the Earth and Focus on the Global South, were not invited back because they were considered too critical and harsh, while Greenpeace, which has sought to spur dialogue on global warming, withdrew because it found the forum was not cooperative.

However, the WEF has always sustained that it accepts peaceful criticism and has held a series of dialogues with groups from its rival, the World Social Forum (WSF) of Porto Alegre; for this reason, the WEF claims, in created the Open Forum in 2003, which allowed 300 participants to attend without charge.

The WSF, which has been held since 2001, presented a new problem for the WEF because it is not comprised of violent activists or traditional social elements inclined more towards action than reflection. Instead the WSF is made up of intellectuals, historians, and economists united by the belief that another world is possible. Their critique of the WEF –that it represents the beneficiaries of free-market globalisation while excluding the less fortunate of the North and the vast majority of the people of the South — is taken into account by Schwab.

In effect, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the WEF has been the sounding board of the so-called Washington Consensus, the agreement between the US government, the IMF, and the World Bank which made neoliberal globalisation into the strategic model for new international relations and pushed all of the Third World to undertake programmes of across-the-board privatisation and unilateral liberalisation of trade, finance, and services.

With great skill, Schwab progressively introduced the issues of the WSF into the WEF: poverty, the claims of the South, discussion of agricultural protectionism and the distortion of the free market. He even brought in stars from the entertainment world to speak on the issues of civil society.

It would correct to say that Davos has generated no innovative proposals for governing and serves as a club for the rich and powerful to analyze complex problems and search for solutions, within, however, the bounds of their own logic. Despite its current openness to new issues, no one today expects ideas and proposals from the WEF or anything more than the great opportunity for socialising it offers its participants.

Assessing the WSF is more complex. Without a doubt participation in the Forum has reached unprecedented levels, topping 100,000 participants, but it has entered a crisis of growth and identity and perhaps a transition to new forms.

Davos and Porto Alegre are both separate actors and at the same time symptoms of their respective worlds. The WEF has the power but faces a crisis of legitimacy. And just as it cannot be said that the WEF has generated new ideas, it is certain that the WSF represents the eruption of a new phase of idealism and commitment in the world. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)