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Latest Successes and Achievements
The World Economic Forum is committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders from the public and private sectors and from wider civil society in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We continute to make significant strides in these three key areas through the application of existing models to new projects, the expansion of current initiatives, and the launch of new initiatives and programmes. The past year’s highlights include:
Shaping the global agenda
 2009: The Annual Meeting provided a global platform for four heads of government from the G8 (Germany, Japan, Russian Federation and United Kingdom) as well as the People’s Republic of China, along with heads of government of G20 members from Africa, Asia and Latin America to help the international community understand the origins of the financial crisis and begin to work on solutions based on a common understanding of where we are.
2009: A new World Economic Forum task force of business leaders, economists and other experts began work advising the UN climate negotiations at the request of Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom.
2009: The World Economic Forum, in association with the governments of Qatar, Singapore and Switzerland, initiated a global, multistakeholder dialogue on a wider global redesign initiative. The aim is to examine ways to improve global governance to meet a changing international reality.
2009: The Forum convened key trade ministers from 17 economies plus the 27-member EU at the Annual Meeting to deter “beggar thy neighbour” policies that would set the world back onto a protectionist spiral reminiscent of the 1930s.
2009: The Forum advanced public-private cooperation on food security, climate change, water security, sustainability, education and international financial stability through the development, publication and discussion of the following reports at the Annual Meeting:
- Green Investing: Towards a Clean Energy Infrastructure
- The Next Billions: Unleashing Business Potential in Untapped Markets
- The Next Billions: Business Strategies to Enhance Food Value Chains and Empower the Poor
- The Bubble Is Close to Bursting: A Forecast of the Main Economic and Geopolitical Water Issues Likely to Arise in the World during the Next Two Decades
- Sustainability for Tomorrow’s Consumer: The Business Case for Sustainability
- Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs: Unlocking Entrepreneurial Capabilities to Meet the Global Challenges of the 21st Century
- The Future of the Global Financial System
2009: The Forum upgraded the capabilities of its WELCOM platform, which was designed in partnership with Adobe Systems, BT Innovate and Microsoft. WELCOM is a collaborative
Web-based platform developed to allow world leaders to consult on global issues via video technology; to share expertise and knowledge in real time; and to create online communities focusing on specific global challenges.
2009: World leaders celebrated the 10th anniversary of the UN’s Global Compact, which was launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 1999.
2009: Global Risks 2009 highlighted a set of economic risks on the rise as a result of the financial crisis. The report identified deteriorating fiscal positions, a hard landing in China, a collapse in asset prices, gaps in global governance and issues relating to natural resources and climate as the pivotal risks facing the world in 2009.
2009: The Forum announced the new class of Young Global Leaders (YGL) 2009 which recognizes between 200 and 300 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.
2008: The world’s biggest ever brainstorming on the Global Agenda ended with call for a “fundamental reboot” of basic operating systems. Over 700 of the world’s thought leaders met for three days in Dubai at the Forum’s inaugural Summit on the Global Agenda.
2008: Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, presented a detailed statement to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of Japan on how best to manage climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Professor Schwab made the presentation on behalf of the 100 international chief executives who endorsed the CEO Climate Policy Recommendations to G8 Leaders, a groundbreaking statement that took 16 months and an international effort to prepare.
2008: Norway led the world in closing the gender gap between men and women, according to the overall ranking in the Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2008.
2008: The United States topped the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009. The annual report measures the competitiveness of 134 economies.
2008: The World Economic Forum's Logistics & Transport community launched The Global Enabling Trade Report as part of ministerial trade discussions aimed at trade facilitation.
2008: A group of 31 Fellows from over 20 countries became the first to graduate from the Forum’s Global Leadership Fellows Programme. It is a unique three-year programme aimed at nurturing the leaders of tomorrow.
2008: At the Annual Meeting 2008, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda unveiled a five-year, US$ 10 billion fund to support efforts in developing countries to combat global warming.
2008: At the Annual Meeting 2008, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a US$ 306 million package of agricultural development grants.
2008: The World Economic Forum, Forum Member companies and the United Nations launched initiatives to deepen private sector support of humanitarian relief operations including Logistics Emergency Teams.
2008: Mayors, regional governors and the private sector launched the World Economic Forum’s SlimCity initiative, an exchange programme between cities and companies to support action on resource efficiency in urban areas, focusing on energy, water, waste, mobility, planning, health and climate change.
2007: 2,940 minutes, representing 49 hours and 24 sessions at the Annual Meeting 2007, were spent addressing environmental issues.
2007: In a year of earthquakes that once again devastated parts of South and South-East Asia, the World Economic Forum’s Disaster Resource Network and its corporate partners put their resources to work on a number of fronts. In total, some 2,000 families in India and Pakistan were able to move from makeshift tents and crowded camps to specially designed transitional shelters; 3,000 students who attended 15 heavily damaged schools in Yogyakarta had their water and sanitation facilities restored; 15,000 injured quake survivors in Pakistan received emergency medical care and thousands of others benefited from the airlift of US$ 3 million of high priority relief supplies (medicine, hospital equipment, blankets, 6-person thermal tents, generators, water sanitation equipment).
2008: The World Economic Forum’s Global Education Initiative has so far impacted over 1.8 million students and teachers and mobilized over US$ 100 million in resource support in Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Territories, Rajasthan and Rwanda. Through multi-stakeholder partnerships, the initiative engages over 40 private sector companies, 14 governments and about 30 civil society organizations to support the implementation of relevant, sustainable and scalable education sector plans.
2008: The Forum's Global Health Initiative became the largest public-private sector network in health. Its mission is to engage businesses in public-private partnerships to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. GHI-catalysed partnerships use the resources and know-how of all parties involved to run projects that yield real results on the ground. Results included:
- The GHI and Lilly MDR-TB Partnership launched two innovative toolkits that aim to boost the involvement of Chinese and South African companies in tackling the TB crisis.
- Beyond Big Business Partnership – with Eskom, Heineken, Standard Chartered Bank, Unilever and Volkswagen. Each company worked with a selection of their suppliers and the GHI's support to reach approximately 50,000 people with lifesaving HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and treatment-intervention programmes. Beyond Big Business – Are Your Suppliers and Distributors Ready for HIV/AIDS? (1MB) I Session summary
- India Business Alliance to Stop TB (IBA) – with Reliance, Aditya Birla, Jubilant Organosys, Eli Lilly, the World Health Organization, the Global Partnership to Stop TB and the Ministry of Health of India. IBA reached a total four million people with a combination of workplace and community programmes in 2006.
- China Health Alliance (CHA) – with Adidas, Standard Chartered Bank, Swire Beverages, Pfizer, the UN and the Chinese government. The CHA focuses on providing education, testing and treatment to the employees of partner companies, with a special emphasis on reaching migrant workers.
- In June 2006 GHI also launched the white paper From Funding to Action: Strengthening Healthcare Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, the first of its kind in highlighting the potential role of business in this arena. As a next step, the GHI is worked in partnership with Merck & Co., Becton Dickinson, Sudler & Hennessy, Accenture, AMREF and UNAIDS to develop a demonstration project to put the report recommendations into practice. Press release
2007: The Business Alliance Against Chronic Hunger (BAACH) was formed in 2006 by a group of chief executives and public leaders who outlined an action plan for business to help reduce hunger. The Alliance began action in Siaya, the poorest district in Kenya, where 38% of children are stunted by malnutrition. Over 30 companies plus key partners – including NGOs, international agencies and the Government of Kenya – took action in four priority areas:
1. Staple crop production and market linkages
2. Integrated processing and packaging
3. Retail and consumer market development
4. Entrepreneurship capacity-building
The Forum released a Report outlining high-leverage ways in which companies can apply their skills to the problems of hunger, malaria and basic education. The Forum’s Members also devised specific recommendations on how financial institutions can stimulate investment in the developing world and on how the Forum can cooperate with the UN Development Programme and various governments to expand the development of public-private partnerships.
2007: The World Economic Forum and the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee (RBWC) issued the final report of a two-year, public-private review of the international monetary system in cooperation with Group of 20 governments. Entitled The International Monetary System, the IMF and the G20: A Great Transformation in the Making?, the report concluded that a critical mass of governments appears ready to try to adapt international financial institutions.
Shaping regional agendas
2009: The Forum’s Young Global Leader initiative to Deworm the World announced the roll-out of treatment programmes to India, Kenya and Guyana, bringing the total coverage of the initiative to 28 million schoolchildren in 35 countries.
2009: The relationship between water and energy took on a new urgency with mounting pressure on limited freshwater resources, according to a new Forum report entitled Thirsty Energy – Water and Energy in the 21st Century.
2008: Nordic countries continued to lead the way on the European Union’s “Lisbon Goals” according to the Lisbon Review.
2008: At the Annual Meeting 2008, the Forum’s Global Education Initiative (GEI) designated Rwanda as the launch country for a pilot programme of the initiative. In partnership with the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (FTI) under the banner of the Global Education Alliance (GEA), the Forum provides the platform to combine the strengths of the private sector and foundations to achieve education for all in low-income countries.
2007: The Forum launched the Israeli-Palestinian Business Council, a key group of Palestinian and Israeli chief executives. The council, consisting of some of the foremost business leaders in Israel and Palestine, advances the relationship between the two business communities and, ultimately, assists the region to move towards durable peace and coexistence.
2007: The Forum's Energy Poverty Alliance is a private sector initiative of Forum Member companies that delivers business expertise and best practices to reduce energy poverty. The three initiating Partners, British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority (Canada), Eskom (South Africa) and Vattenfall (Sweden), committed to developing pilot projects in Lesotho and the Democratic Republic of Congo, providing electricity to more than 70,000 people.
2007: The Investment Climate Facility for Africa – endorsed by the Forum’s Africa Economic Summit 2005, and an outcome of the G8/UK Commission for Africa’s Year of Africa deliberations – was launched at the World Economic Forum on Africa with secured seed funding of US$ 100 million and a strong, business-led mandate to improve Africa’s investment climate. ICF website
2007: The World Economic Forum’s Water Initiative advanced collaboration between the public and private sectors. One key development was the establishment of an Indian Business Alliance on Water with the United States Agency for International Development, the United Nations Development Programme and the Confederation of Indian Industry. The alliance aims to improve the availability and quality of water in India. Work is also in progress related to waste water re-use, infrastructure development and policy dialogue in both India and Southern Africa.
2007: The Forum’s Young Global Leaders in Japan developed a programme called Table for Two to address the imbalances of obesity and lifestyle-related diseases in developed countries, as well as hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.
Shaping industry agendas
 2009: The Forum’s report The Future of the Global Financial System: A Near-Term Outlook and Long-Term Scenarios explored a near-term industry outlook characterized by an expanded scope for regulatory oversight, back to basics in the banking sector, restructuring by alternative investment firms and the emergence of a new set of winners and losers.
2009: The Forum published the second volume of Working Papers on The Global Economic Impact of Private Equity which found that private equity-owned firms are generally better managed than their counterparts and have strong operational management practices.
2009: Despite the economic downturn, companies can find growth opportunities among the 3.7 billion people at the “base of the pyramid” (BOP) by adopting innovative strategies that benefit local communities, according to two reports released by the Forum:
- The Next Billions: Unleashing Business Potential in Untapped Markets
- The Next Billions: Business Strategies to Enhance Food Value Chains and Empower the Poor
2009: In the first research effort of its kind, the World Economic Forum’s Logistics & Transport Community, with the support of Accenture, quantified and ranked opportunities to reduce supply chain carbon intensity as part of its Supply Chain Decarbonization programme.
2009: The latest Travel & Tourism report focused on difficulties facing the sector during the economic downturn. Switzerland, Austria and Germany continued to lead followed by France, Canada, Spain and Sweden.
2009: The Forum’s Young Global Leaders are developing a model code of ethics and conduct for business and other leaders.
2008: 34 visionary companies were selected as Technology Pioneers 2009 for their accomplishments as innovators of the highest calibre, and whose technologies will have a deep impact on business and society.
2008: The Forum’s report, The Future of Pensions and Healthcare in a Rapidly Ageing World – Scenarios to 2030, indicated that new forms of collaboration between key stakeholders – individuals, financial institutions, healthcare providers, employers and governments – will be critical to finance the ongoing well-being of current and future generations in a sustainable manner.
2008: Released for the first time, the Financial Development Index is a rigorous, comprehensive analysis of financial systems and capital markets in 52 countries that analyses key drivers of financial system development and economic growth in developing and developed countries.
2008: The Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) launched the first-ever anti-corruption campaign on YouTube to mark the International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December.
Over 135 companies representing more than US$ 500 billion in annual turnover signed up to the Partnering Against Corruption Principles for Countering Bribery (PACI Principles). Signatories
2008: Produced in collaboration with Partners who are important players in the global financial services industry, Convergence of Insurance and Capital Markets explored the growth of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and highlighted potential next steps to continue its development and further encourage investors’ strong appetite for catastrophe (“cat”) bonds and other forms of insurance-linked products.
2007: The World Economic Forum established the Community of Global Growth Companies in the People’s Republic of China with the mission to enable emerging multinationals to develop into the next generation of global champions and become a major force driving economic development.
2006: The World Economic Forum expanded into North America with the opening of World Economic Forum USA in New York. The offices act as the global headquarters for the Centre for Global Industries, the group responsible for leading the Forum's industry activities including the Industry Partners Programme.
2006: The Forum launched the Industry Partners Programme, which is composed of select Member companies who strongly support the Forum's commitment to improve the state of the world.
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