World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an annual gathering of leading figures from the corporate, political, academic, and media worlds. The forum meets in the exclusive Swiss Alpine resort of Davos (with the exception of 2002, when it met in New York City) at [Page 1025]the height of the ski season (usually in January). Its self-stated aim is to provide an environment conducive to the sharing and dissemination of information and policy, as well as the development of ideas among the delegates with a view to improving “the state of the world.” Delegates attend the WEF only by the invitation of the managing board. The handpicking of delegates is said to add to the forum's clublike atmosphere. The importance of those gathered and the WEF machinery that brings them together gives the forum a formidable say in shaping global political and economic policy.

Business professor, entrepreneur, and current Executive Chairperson Klaus Schwab has been the driving force behind the WEF since its creation. The WEF counts 1,000 large corporations and 200 small businesses among its members. Though membership is said to be drawn from in excess of 100 countries, there is a heavy bias toward European and U.S. corporations. A small group of forty “strategic partners” play a leading role in steering the WEF's agenda and activities. Accenture, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Deutsche Bank, IBM, Nestlé, Time Warner, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and Nike figure among this group.

The WEF first met in 1970 as the European Management Forum (EMF); though it did not become a regular feature of the Alpine ski season until January 1971. In 1987, the EMF was renamed the World Economic Forum. The new name reflected the changed purpose of the gatherings. While the WEF retained a core focus on international business strategy, it added an explicitly political dimension. The WEF publicity credits the EMF with helping to kick-start the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations, nudging along German reunification, facilitating the Middle East peace process, and accelerating South African reconciliation.

Since becoming the WEF, the forum has held a series of continental and special summits focusing on regional or specific issues. For instance, the WEF held a “peace and reconciliation” meeting in Jordan in the wake of the formal end to the Gulf War. The influence of the WEF and its elitist nature has attracted much interest and opposition from civil society organizations. The most visible response was in 2001 with the establishment of a World Social Summit (held first in Porto Alegre, Brazil, then in Mumbai, India); but it has also been subject to mass public demonstrations. The WEF's attempts to placate its critics have so far failed, and the growing size of the gatherings is increasingly seen as undermining the WEF's uniqueness.