Civil Society
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), labour leaders, religious leaders, faith-based organizations and other civil society actors are key members of the World Economic Forum’s multistakeholder platform. These communities bring leaders from a wide range of fields to collaborate together with government and business leaders on finding and advocating solutions to global challenges.
The NGO community at the World Economic Forum consists of non-governmental organizations operating at global and regional levels. It represents a wide range of activities, including advocacy, emergency response and disaster relief, service delivery and research and expertise.
NGOs are actively engaged in the World Economic Forum’s activities including: Annual Meetings, regional meetings, and cross-cutting and industry initiatives. NGOs bring deep experience and insight to multistakeholder dialogue and partnerships formed at the World Economic Forum on topics such as:
- Conflict and security
- Disaster management
- Environment and sustainability
- Entrepreneurship
- Financial systems
- Food security
- Gender
- Information and communications
- Health and sanitation
- Human rights
- Transparency and corruption
- Technology
- Youth employment
In the past year, the NGO community has contributed to several specific initiatives: Friends of Rio+20 group, Partnering Against Corruption Initiative, Disaster Resource Partnership, New Vision for Agriculture, Responsible Mineral Development Initiative, Urban Development, Energy for Society, Collaborative Innovation, Green Growth Action Alliance and the Water Resources Group.
Members of the NGO community are highly involved in numerous Global Agenda Councils.
Labour organizations are engaged and integrated in all World Economic Forum activities as experts and thought leaders on issues of globalization, economic revitalization, environment, employment and social protection, as well as ensuring accountability in the global financial system social protection systems, the role of finance in society, green jobs and sustainability.
Labour Leaders are actively engaged at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings, regional meetings and summits, Global Agenda Councils and in cross-cutting and industry initiatives. During 2011-12, deeper interaction and integration have led to substantive involvement in a range of international governance processes and sector-led dialogues.
With 80% of the world’s population adhering to a religion, faith communities represent a powerful driver for transformation and change. The World Economic Forum recognizes the relevance of religion and faith to the global economy, politics, society and individuals, and is keenly aware of the important role played by faith communities around the world in advancing human society in an inclusive and sustainable way. Over the years, the Forum’s multistakeholder platform has increasingly integrated the voice of influential religious leaders from multiple faiths, including faith-based organizations and experts on religion to contribute with their unique perspectives to the global dialogue and to the activation of solutions to the most pressing common challenges. This participation has enriched the shaping of global, industry and regional agendas with dimensions of inclusiveness, sustainable development, human dignity and personal resilience.
Deeper interaction and integration during 2011-2012 has resulted in significant civil society engagement to shape international governance and corporate responsibility agendas. In 2012, a new Global Agenda Council on the Role of Civil Society was established to provide a platform for debate, analysis and solution-building around the role of civil society in global decision-making processes.
The World Economic Forum has also embarked on a project drawing on strategic foresight expertise to explore The Future Role of Civil Society. Engaging labour, faith-based and NGO communities, as well as representatives of business, government and international organizations, the Future Role of Civil Society project highlights the most salient economic, social, environmental, political and technological drivers that influence how we respond to societal challenges. Project participants used these drivers to build challenging scenarios for civil society in 2030, in the process uncovering fresh insight into the creation of resilient and dynamic cross-sector partnerships.
Finally, a regular cycle of consultation is held to ensure that the expert views of civil society organizations are well integrated in the World Economic Forum’s activities.
Can empathy scale technology?
Jonathan Jackson argues that empathy is necessary to make technology effective.
I have been fortunate enough to have been in the emerging field of mobile health well before there was much mobile to hype about. At Dimagi, our first “mobile” project was on a personal digital assistant that had no wireless capability. Over the years I have seen mobile technology help save lives. But I’ve also seen mobile technology employed in nearly identical situations, do absolutely nothing, or worse, make healthcare delivery more cumbersome.
We have certainly had deployments that fit in both categories. As I...
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March 18, 2013
The future of China’s ant tribe
In China, a special group of educated youth lives on the margins of society. They are the young people who were born and raised in the countryside, who went on to university, but are unable to land their dream job in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai after graduation.
They call themselves the “ant tribe”, partly due to their industrious, hard-working nature, but also in reference to their cramped and meagre living conditions. The ant tribe illustrates a drastic mismatch between China’s educated youth and its economic boom.
This mismatch partly came from China’s existing economic model,...
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March 13, 2013
Punishment by politics
Adrian Monck, Managing Director of Communication and Media Relations at the World Economic Forum, discusses why punishing people is not good politics
The elections in Italy reveal a crisis in leadership. Wolfgang Münchau blames Mario Monti’s defeat on a lack of political realism – code for cynicism. Paul Krugman blames it not just on Monti but on a European élite – or ‘Very Serious People’.
in Europe even more than in the US the Very Serious People live in a bubble of self-regard at their own seriousness, and imagine that the general public will follow their...
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March 4, 2013
What will nonprofits look like in 2043?
Like businesses, non-profit organizations must discover how to be successful in the wake of new disruptive forces.
In the past five years, social media has put a spin on fundraising, Big Data has made donors keener on evidence-based return on investment (ROI), and collective impact is becoming an even more established pillar of humanitarian work.
If we look to the far horizon, how does the non-profit world look? What new forces have influenced the non-profits of 2043? Has the role of implementer and beneficiary shifted, or even flipped? I think by considering the following three trends, we...
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February 22, 2013
The role of social entrepreneurs
The expansion of social services in developing countries offers the greatest opportunity for social entrepreneurs to create systemic change. In the world of social entrepreneurship, emphasis is placed on selling products and services to the poor, overlooking the spending limitations that lower income families face. But slums are devoid of private schools and hospitals for a reason: the disposable income simply isn’t there. Governments need to fill this gap in the most effective way possible, and social entrepreneurs are the solution.
Many social entrepreneurs seek to lower costs until...
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February 15, 2013
Pandora’s inbox
Shashi Tharoor, India’s Minister of State for Human Resource Development, discusses how email can lead to information fatigue
A half-century before the invention of e-mail, T. S. Eliot asked, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” If he were alive today, contemplating an electronic inbox on a flickering computer, he might well have added, “Where is the information that has been lost in trivia?”
It is one of the paradoxes of our times that inventions meant to make our lives easier inevitably end up slowing us down. When e-mail first...
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February 12, 2013
Will civil society lead the way?
Peter Prove, Executive Director of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, addresses the future role of civil society
The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, “Resilient Dynamism”, seems a bit of a contradiction in terms. But that contradiction is exactly the reality for civil society today.
On the one hand, civil society – in its many different forms – is thriving. There has been an explosion of civil society organizations emerging in many countries across the world and at the international level, and with significantly increased visibility and influence in national and...
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February 8, 2013
Is the information revolution transforming power?
Joseph S. Nye, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, discusses the information revolution is transforming the nature of power
The second anniversary of the “Arab Spring” in Egypt was marked by riots in Tahrir Square that made many observers fear that their optimistic projections in 2011 had been dashed. Part of the problem is that expectations had been distorted by a metaphor that described events in short-run terms. If, instead of “Arab Spring,” we had spoken of “Arab revolutions,” we might have had more realistic expectations. Revolutions unfold over decades, not seasons or years.
Consider...
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February 7, 2013
Is social media changing the private sector?
Social media is having a profound impact on the way we communicate with one another, as well as the amount of content creation, sharing and information exchange that takes place every day. Much has been described about the ways that these interactions are changing our personal lives and redefining civic engagement.
US President Barak Obama’s campaigns generated a grassroots movement with social media as the primary tool of engagement. With the Arab Spring, the sweep of protests across the region proved that young, leaderless activists using primarily online and mobile tools could topple...
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February 5, 2013
We know what’s good for us, we just don’t do it
The pressures of modern life too often make it difficult to take the right health choices, writes Pieter Nota.
Across the world, people want to maintain and improve their health and well-being, and that of their family and friends. In recent research carried out by Philips, looking after the health of family consistently ranks as one of the top five priorities in people’s lives, regardless of their age or the country they live in.
Health trends in many countries, highlighted in reports like this recently published landmark research, show the importance of making positive changes in our daily...
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January 25, 2013
Trust needs to be earned on personal data
Raymond J. Baxter, senior vice-president at Kaiser Permanente, on why a culture of trust will help us reap the broader benefits of personal data.
The vast amounts of personal data that have come into being in the past 10 years represent an opportunity to create significant social and economic benefits for all of us. However, to gain this value, we must rethink – in sensitive and nuanced ways – how to engage individuals in the use (and reuse) of their personal data.
Like much in life, achieving this balance will require a renewed emphasis on the role of context in our decision-making....
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January 25, 2013
Ideas @Davos: Digital rights and wrongs
You own your data, and you should only share it when you get something back in return, argues Professor Sandy Pentland.
Social networks should mirror the way we build up trust in the real world, says Sandy Pentland in the above video, which explores how to build a fair digital society. You should have the same rights and obligations in the digital world as you do in the physical world.
Sandy Pentland is the Toshiba Professor of Media, Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is participating in the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2013.
Look out for An...
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January 25, 2013
Why technology is the future for girls
In the developing world, nearly 25% fewer girls and women are online than boys and men – closing this gap will change their futures, argues Nigel Chapman, CEO of Plan International.
Should access to a computer or a mobile phone be a basic human right? A controversial question perhaps but, nowadays, as technology leaps ahead into previously unimagined realms, one can argue that to be ill-educated in information and communications technology is to be immediately disadvantaged for life and work in the modern world. You only have to look at the news from last week’s annual technology...
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January 24, 2013
Ideas @Davos: Unlocking education
The textbooks of the future will be digital, personalised and available to all, says Jose Ferreira.
Education is the ultimate gateway problem. Whether the goal is to address dinner city poverty or threats to the environment, improvements in both the adaptability and delivery of education will help to solve them, argues Jose Ferreira in the video above.
Unlocking Education describes the next revolution in education: adaptive learning. Online schooling can lower the cost of textbooks and solve the access problem in the developing world. As a supplement to conventional schooling, it allows for a...
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January 23, 2013
Growing spinach in a skyscraper
As humans, we’ve always innovated our way out of problems, from steam engines to city farms, argues Frans van Houten.
What if just 20 buildings dedicated to urban farming could provide the entire city of New York with fruit and vegetables year round? It sounds like a fantasy of the future dreamed up on a Hollywood film set. But with breakthrough technology in LED lighting, when it comes to growing spinach in a skyscraper, the future is already here.
City farming is not only possible, it is the very definition of the kind of meaningful, sustainable innovation we will need to meet the grand...
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January 23, 2013
10 ways consumers are changing
Mark Spelman, Managing Director at Accenture, on how a better grasp of what makes customers tick will help to spur economic growth.
As the global economy recovers slowly, there is a sense of hope from businesses that a corner has been turned. But optimistic shareholder expectations appear to be out of kilter with the weak projections for global economic growth. If stock markets are correct, then companies must grow rapidly to meet analyst expectations in the next few years. To reach that growth target, the non-financial companies in the S&P Global 1200, alone, must find an additional US$...
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January 22, 2013
Solving problems the civil society way
Aron Cramer, CEO of Business for Social Responsibility, writes that civil society fills the crucial gap between unwieldy governments and unconnected individuals. Read the World Economic Forum’s report on the Future Role of Civil Society.
As the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2013 unfolds in Davos over the next several days, it will be clear that civil society is essential to solutions on every single question being debated – from water scarcity and human rights, to economic opportunity for young people.
The fundamental architecture of society is changing fast. The financial crisis...
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January 22, 2013
Four pillars of good business
Takeshi Niinami, CEO of Lawson and GAC chair, on why “doing the right thing” will lead to sustainable growth.
In the 21st century, diverse societies are globally connected due to transportation and technology and all share concerns related to energy, climate change, poverty, healthcare and human rights. One country, region or sector of a society cannot on its own provide the solutions to address such a complex web of issues. Thus, the engagement in global agendas must be multiregional and multidisciplinary.
The establishment in 1999 of the UN Global Compact was a clear sign that corporations...
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January 22, 2013
Data-driven societies
Alex “Sandy” Pentland is Toshiba Professor of Media, Arts and Sciences, at MIT, discusses how Data is shaping all aspects of society.
Back in the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution spurred rapid urban growth, created huge social inequities and caused significant environmental problems. New thinking was needed for building a healthy, safe and efficient society. No different than today, these solutions needed to be both resilient and fit for a changing world.
A century ago, however, the response to these challenges was to build specialized and centrally controlled networks that solved each...
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January 21, 2013
The Future Role of Civil Society
Civil society actors – including NGOs, labour organizations, faith groups and a range of other emerging actors – are more important than ever. The past decade has seen the rise of the increasingly aware, connected and educated global citizen demanding new ways of engaging with business and governments in a time of economic and political turbulence.The Future Role of Civil Society report is the outcome of an eight-month project, in collaboration with KPMG International and involving over 200 leaders and experts, looking at how trends in technology, politics, society, economics and the...
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January 16, 2013
When East meets West on the global economic stage
Since I took the decision a little over a year ago to relocate to Hong Kong, I have had a ringside seat at the fundamental shift which is taking place in the world’s economy and social structure – the repositioning of the centre of gravity for the global economy from West to East.If you accept that this shift is taking place, then you also accept that Asia as a region should have an increasing role on the global economic and political stage. US President Barack Obama certainly seems to recognize this point; his “pivot to Asia” has been well documented and was reinforced when he made a visit...
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January 15, 2013
Can we end extreme poverty by 2030?
With only two weeks to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2013, Save the Children has released a new report on what must be a major topic of debate at Davos: ending extreme poverty for good.The report, Ending Poverty in Our Generation, sets out the 10 global goals which we believe the world needs to commit to in order to help us achieve that vision. These are what we believe should succeed the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are set to expire in 2015.The development goals that come after 2015 should build on the strengths of the MDGs. They must achieve a balance of human...
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January 10, 2013
The optimist’s timeline
SEATTLE – Usually, “optimism” and “realism” are used to describe two different outlooks on life. But I believe that a realistic appraisal of the human condition compels an optimistic worldview. I am particularly optimistic about the potential for technological innovation to improve the lives of the poorest people in the world. That is why I do the work that I do.
Even so, there is one area of technology and global development where reality has tempered my optimism: the idea that cellphones would revolutionize life in developing countries. A decade ago, many people believed that the...
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January 3, 2013
Why we should invest more in the education of girls
Shashi Tharoor is India’s Minister of State for Human Resource Development. His most recent book is Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.
NEW DELHI – One of the more difficult questions I found myself being asked when I was a United Nations under-secretary-general, especially when addressing a general audience, was: “What is the single most important thing that can be done to improve the world?”
It’s the kind of question that tends to bring out the bureaucrat in even the most direct of communicators, as one feels obliged to explain the complexity of the challenges confronting...
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December 19, 2012
The right to values
The world today is more connected than it has ever been, due to technology. New economic opportunities across continents have brought people from different cultures closer. In this scenario, openness and acceptability have emerged as vital qualities to have. Being able to adjust in a cross-cultural team is critical to business today. Similarly, being able to live in harmony in a cross-cultural neighbourhood is critical to a healthy society. Therefore, it is important to find connects between people, and what connects cultures across the globe are human values.
The term “human rights” gives...
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December 17, 2012
Keeping the faith in human rights
To my children’s great amusement, it seems that I am increasingly becoming known as “The Toilet Bishop”. It is a title I am prepared to wear with pride in the week that marks International Human Rights Day, because it illustrates so vividly how the concerns of faith communities – and for me specifically the Christian Church – and human rights agendas intersect.
Those of us who enjoy clean water and sanitation tend to take them for granted. Yet only a moment’s thought will tell us how radically our lives would be altered if we had to live without either. The United Nations has recognized...
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December 14, 2012
How better use of energy systems can reap benefits for society
In a series of blog posts leading up to the launch of the World Economic Forum’s Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2013 on 11 December 2012, Mr. Manpreet Anand, a Senior Policy Adviser at Chevron, discusses how energy is a key driver to reach today’s socioeconomic objectives
Energy is foundational for promoting growth in our economies and progress in our societies. The energy footprint and security of a country are also key factors in facilitating development and sustainability. When considering how to advance development in societies around the world, we rightly think of...
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December 11, 2012
Faith, Values and Religion
The World Economic Forum recognizes the immense importance of faith communities around the world and the relevance of faith to the global economy, politics, society and individuals. The voices of faith leaders are integrated throughout our events and activities as experts on a broad set of topics of relevance to the global agenda.In 2001, the World Economic Forum began engaging various faith communities through the Community for West-Islam dialogue, a dynamic group of business, political, religious, media and opinion leaders engaged in inter-faith dialogue to promote understanding across...
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November 18, 2010
