| Børge Brende, President of the Managing Board

The war in Ukraine and growing geopolitical turbulence have lent new urgency to the Forum’s mission of advancing multistakeholder and multilateral cooperation. As the rules-based global system faces the most significant challenge in the post-war era, it is incumbent on actors to work with a common purpose to strengthen the underlying mechanisms of regional and global collaboration while addressing immediate and long-standing priorities.

Housing nine regional and community teams alongside the Platform for Shaping the Future of Trade and Investment, the Centre facilitates impact-oriented dialogue and builds communities of purpose.

Through this work, the Centre generates actionable insights and delivers collaborative efforts that help stakeholders not just navigate but also shape today’s uncertain environment.

In March 2022, the Centre convened a CEO Dialogue: Responding to the Geopolitical Crisis in Europe that brought together over 100 CEOs as well as leading experts to identify steps business can take to address the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and geopolitical challenges in Europe. The Centre also hosted a special Agenda Dialogue: The Humanitarian Crisis in Ukraine and Its Global Impacts to offer audiences ways to assist refugees and displaced persons.

The Centre assembled the Breaking the Impasse community, which now counts more than 200 Israeli and Palestinian business leaders working together to advocate for a two-state solution. In October 2021, members of the group met with Hady Amr, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel-Palestinian Affairs, to discuss how they could advance dialogue on a solution. In February 2022, members met with Ruth Porat, Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer of Google, after which the company pledged $10 million in support of the Palestinian technology ecosystem.

The Centre continued to serve as a platform for strengthening economic growth and stability in the Western Balkans. Leaders from business and government met at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 for a Diplomacy Dialogue on the Western Balkans to identify steps to boost the region’s resilience and secure ties with key partners at a time of heightened geopolitical risk.

A critical foundation of the Centre’s work are its Country Strategy Dialogues – private conversations between business leaders and top government officials, including heads of state and government. These sessions serve as a crucial tool for identifying the measures needed to attract investment opportunity, build competitiveness and accelerate growth. Dialogues were held this year with leadership from China, Colombia, the European Commission, Indonesia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United States and Viet Nam.

The Centre also convenes Global and Regional Action Groups, each comprised of approximately 50 to 70 leaders from business and government, which meet quarterly to explore and present strategies for strengthening cooperative structures and advancing shared priorities. Their activities this year include:

– The Global Action Group identified options for advancing cooperative efforts within a more competitive geopolitical context. Members presented insights during The Davos Agenda in January 2022, focusing on pathways towards building a more equitable and sustainable global economy.

– The Regional Action Group for Africa focused on advancing economic and energy priorities on the continent, releasing white papers on “Attracting Investment and Accelerating Fourth Industrial Revolution Adoption in Africa” and on “Financing the Future of Energy”.

– The Regional Action Group for ASEAN supported priority areas for the implementation of the ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework. With the historic signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and strides made towards enhancing regional cooperation on the digital economy, the group contributed to finding ways to strengthen supply chain resilience and expand digital collaboration across ASEAN.

– The Regional Action Group for Europe and Eurasia examined paths towards long-term competitiveness in the region. Members of the CEO Action Group for the European Green Deal continued to deliver concrete results to tackle carbon emissions through tailored lighthouse projects, such as the EU Carbon + Farming Coalition.

– The Regional Action Group for Latin America convened members to chart effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and joint actions for rebuilding and recovery efforts.

– The Regional Action Group for the Middle East and North Africa facilitated peer exchanges on energy, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and sustainable investment strategies.

– The Regional Action Group for South Asia convened regional leaders and global experts for action oriented discussions on South Asia’s economic outlook and to develop a collaborative roadmap for the region’s green transition.

The Centre delivers public-facing special addresses and dialogues as well as reports and analytical content that elevate public discourse on the most crucial issues facing the world today. In January 2022, The Davos Agenda featured special addresses and remarks by 13 heads of state or representatives. A virtual dialogue was held also with the presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru, and the President of the InterAmerican Development Bank.

In July 2021, the Global Future Councils on Geopolitics and on the Korean Peninsula partnered with Chatham House to convene a dialogue on shaping sustainable security on the peninsula.

In collaboration with Kearney and Observer Research Foundation, the Centre prepared “Mission 2070: A Green New Deal for a Net Zero India”, a sectoral multistakeholder roadmap for India to accelerate decarbonization, and laid foundations for the upcoming India CEO Climate Action Leaders group.

Based on a joint survey with Sea Ltd of close to 90,000 respondents in ASEAN, the Forum published the ASEAN Digital Generation Report: Pathway to ASEAN’s Inclusive Digital Transformation and Recovery, examining the impact of the pandemic in ASEAN countries and exploring the benefits, remaining challenges and outlook for inclusive digitalization.

The first in an insight report series, the Lighthouse Action on Social Justice through Stakeholder Inclusion publication featured nine corporate engagement case studies that show ways businesses are advancing social justice and equity.

In step with pending EU corporate human rights due diligence legislation, the Global Future Council on Human Rights launched a set of resources to guide business leaders and corporate boards on how to protect human rights and learn from affected stakeholders.

The Platform for Shaping the Future of Trade and Investment brings together a community of over 100 leading global companies with trade and investment officials to address the challenges and opportunities for resilient, sustainable and inclusive trade. Through a programme of over 50 gatherings, members of the community used the platform to advance the following four priorities.

– Promoting open and stable commerce
The community delivered a call to action signed by 30 CEOs and chairpersons from five continents urging world leaders to re-engage on trade reform, because an underlying cause of trade tensions remains differences among governments on how international rules should guide state intervention in economies at different stages of development. It published a white paper entitled “Industrial Policy and International Competition” on the spillovers of industrial policy that lays out priority areas for action across subsidies, state-ownership, government procurement, trade remedies and investment screening.

– Supporting sustainable and equitable value chains
Members of the community drafted a paper that presented a revised approach to “International Trade and Economic Justice”. Recognizing that women have been disproportionately affected by the economic impact of the pandemic, the platform also served to present an analysis on how trade can support a more gender-equal recovery. Additionally, in support of a new global intergovernmental process on sustainable trade that was launched in December, a white paper was released in partnership with Clifford Chance on “Delivering a Climate Trade Agenda: Industry Insights” on how trade can be more supportive of climate action.

– Facilitating the flow of goods, services and investment
A central focus of the platform remained helping to facilitate growth by making trade and investment simpler and easier. The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation has 32 country projects that are completed or under way. Half of the projects are in Africa and all mainstream gender and SME priorities based on newly developed best practices. Through the Global Investment Policy and Practice initiative, concrete investment facilitation reforms were delivered in five countries with deep private-sector involvement, and substantial input was provided towards a 100-country plurilateral agreement on investment facilitation for development. The goal of a World Investment for Development Alliance was established with leading international organizations and a funded effort was launched to ameliorate digital foreign direct investment.

– Growing cross-border digital business
To shape global and regional data-flow governance dialogues, the platform released white papers on “Digital Trade in Services and Taxation” and “Digital Currency Governance”. It also launched a partnership with the World Trade Organization that focuses on the impact of emerging technologies on trade policy.

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022, the Forum launched a Resilience Consortium, a high-level leadership effort to develop a common resilience framework and coordinated resilience agenda by January 2023. The Forum’s Humanitarian Agenda brought key stakeholders from governments, civil society, international organizations and corporates as well as investors together to discuss expanding solutions that strengthen the self-reliance and resilience of the most vulnerable communities.

With support from the IKEA Foundation, the Humanitarian and Resilience Investing Initiative expanded its efforts to catalyse private capital in fragile markets and strengthen organizational capacity to unlock new sources of financing. The Global Future Council on the New Agenda for Fragility and Resilience published guidelines for complementary action in fragile contexts to showcase how public and private actors can work in concert to better meet the needs of communities in crisis.

In addition, the Centre worked to bring 281 public figures to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos-Klosters, 44 of whom were heads of state and government. Over the course of the year, the Centre convened 16 Regional and Global Action Group meetings and nine Country Strategy Dialogues, while hosting eight Global Future Councils. Over 120 civil society organizations directly partnered with the Forum.

To help raise global climate action and ambition, the Forum partnered with the United Kingdom’s COP26 Unit in the lead up to the climate conference and helped launch the First Movers Coalition at COP26 with US President Joe Biden and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. The coalition is jump-starting demand for clean technologies in supply chains.

As the Middle East prepares to host the next two Conferences of the Parties in Egypt and the UAE, the Forum announced a partnership with Egypt to support its efforts around COP27 and is preparing to enter a similar partnership with the UAE. The Forum will help facilitate public-private dialogue and will rally the private sector to contribute effectively to these two events.

Explore Centre for Regional and Global Cooperation initiatives here →