The World Economic Forum is the only organization in the world that takes a systemic view in everything it does. Involved in over 140 initiatives, the Forum works with all stakeholders of global society. A few examples of the direct, tangible impact achieved follow.

The EDISON Alliance aims to advance digital inclusion by providing affordable access to digital services to 1 billion people by 2025.

An estimated 2.7 billion people worldwide do not have access to the internet. The EDISON Alliance seeks to accelerate the delivery of digital services to these unserved and underserved populations, inspire concrete commitments to its 1 Billion Lives Challenge, and demonstrate that universal digital inclusion is an achievable goal.

The alliance is an unprecedented collaboration between the information and communication technologies community and the health, education and finance sectors, all committed to driving systems change. Launched in January 2021, the alliance comprises 50 CEOs and ministers and 100 organizations across sectors and industries.

To date, the EDISON Alliance has recorded a positive effect on the lives of 454 million people through 250 initiatives in 90 countries, representing 45% of the 2025 target. Breaking down the impact achieved in the three focus areas of finance, education and health, of the 454 million people benefited by this initiative, 280 million had improved access to digital finance and banking, close to 20 million reported improved access to education (e-learning), 90 million had easy and effective access to digital healthcare facilities and services and more than 64 million disposed of better digital infrastructure.

This year, the EDISON Alliance published its first annual impact report; expanded the Global Lighthouse Network, a public-private partnership platform to support governments in achieving their digital inclusion agenda, to include additional countries and new regions; launched the Initiatives Marketplace, an online catalogue showcasing partner initiatives to scale, as well as opportunities to partner and coordinate action collectively; and supported the successful delivery of several high-impact initiatives.

For example, in India, American Tower Corporation and Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation together launched five digital dispensaries accessible to 200 villages in four districts, offering healthcare services to nearly 250,000 people who had not previously been served. Since its launch, the initiative has brought the cost of service to less than $6 on average.

The Forum’s Reskilling Revolution platform aims to provide 1 billion people with better education, skills and economic opportunities by 2030. Since its launch in January 2020, the initiative has reached over 350 million people worldwide, providing learners and workers with the education, reskilling and upskilling opportunities needed to prepare for tomorrow’s economy and society.

Technological shifts, geo-economic pressures, demographic changes and the green transition are creating structural churn across jobs and skills. According to the Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023, almost a quarter of jobs (23%) are expected to change in the next five years and over 40% of the core skills needed in the average job are also expected to change. Preparing learners and workers to navigate and thrive through this disruption is key to ensuring economic prosperity, social mobility and societal stability.

To realize this vision with urgency, more than 60 CEOs, over 20 governments and a broader network of approximately 350 organizations are driving investment into education, reskilling and upskilling through the Reskilling Revolution. Supported by the Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society, together these champions take stock of changing patterns in jobs and skills, source commitments towards reskilling and upskilling from a wide range of business and government stakeholders, and co-create solutions and frameworks, such as a global skills taxonomy. The initiative also supports national progress through a global network of Skills Accelerators, public-private collaborations to drive new financing, revitalize policy instruments, measurements and metrics, and improve skills delivery mechanisms, enabled by the Skills Accelerator Playbook.

The initiative also addresses the needs of the next generation through its Education 4.0 approach. Fourteen national governments, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Georgia, Greece, India, Mongolia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, South Africa, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, are currently part of the Skills and Education Accelerators Network, while Finland and Singapore serve as Knowledge Partners.

This year, the initiative’s reach to over 350 million people came through 110 commitments made by businesses, governments and the Global Country Accelerators Network. It also launched an Education 4.0 taxonomy, presenting a comprehensive set of skills, attitudes and values to prepare young learners for well-being in the economies of the future. It selected 16 education “lighthouse” case studies as examples of the most innovative and forward-looking education initiatives and launched a guide for organizations to adopt a “skills-first” approach for attracting, hiring, developing and redeploying talent. Reskilling Revolution champions also agreed on an ambitious strategy to reach over 600 million learners and workers by 2025.

The First Movers Coalition seeks to harness the purchasing power of leading global companies to unlock the potential of the emerging technologies needed to decarbonize the world by 2050. By this date, 50% of the reductions required for net-zero emissions must come from technologies not yet available on a wide scale. The coalition is marshalling leading companies to apply their purchasing power to create guaranteed early markets for advanced technologies to scale up the next generation of net-zero solutions for carbon-intensive sectors.

The coalition’s 82 members made a total of 103 commitments in at least one sector and participated in collective activities to push forward net-zero goals. The coalition works with governments and existing initiatives to build on and complement ongoing efforts to decarbonize industries. These partnerships include 12 Government Partners committed to rapidly expanding emerging technologies; Implantation Partners providing reporting and analytics to measure progress made; Knowledge Partners supporting the formulation of sectoral commitments as well as the sector working groups assisting members in commitment delivery; and, finally, the Design Committee consisting of leading organizations that offer input into the design of the sectoral commitments and amplify impact by sharing their expertise and networks.

Today, the First Movers Coalition represents an unprecedented, credible demand signal of over $12 billion for clean technologies and solutions that are necessary to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. It is a truly global programme, with members currently spanning 22 countries on four continents. This includes seven members based in developing economies (Brazil, India and Mexico). The coalition membership is also diverse in terms of value chain coverage: each sector has members from the upstream and downstream segments of the value chain. The price premium is thus equally shared among industry players, thereby reducing the burden on any single company or economy.

Cross-sector collaboration enabled by the First Movers Coalition is already taking place: two global companies worked together to spur demand and trigger more than $2 billion-worth of investment in modern, low-carbon aluminium rolling mills, the first of their kind built in the United States in 40 years. These mills will serve as examples of modern, sustainable manufacturing.

Another coalition member broke ground on a $50 million recycling centre in Ulsan, South Korea, scheduled to begin operations in 2024. With an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes, the centre is expected to reduce the company’s carbon emissions by 420,000 tonnes per year. The addition of this recycling centre will increase the company’s recycling capacity in the country by more than 20% and enhance its capability to process different types of aluminium scrap for customers not just in South Korea, but worldwide.

Business and economic development thrive on confidence, predictability and transparency. Red tape, cumbersome paper-based procedures and the inconsistent treatment of goods at borders create uncertainty, delays and additional costs. Modernizing border procedures encourages trade, with smaller businesses standing to gain most from easier access to international markets. Predictable, efficient processes also save governments’ time and resources, while safeguarding borders and revenue collection. Guided by the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement, Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation projects work through public-private partnership to achieve measurable impacts, unlocking the potential of developing countries and least-developed countries.

The alliance is active in some 30 countries. To date, alliance initiatives have achieved an initial tenfold return on investment.

Every alliance project stems from a joint recognition of the need to target identified obstacles to trade and a willingness to work together to eliminate them.

Supported by the alliance, Ecuador, the world’s biggest banana exporter and a major producer of other crops, such as cut flowers and cocoa, adopted the International Plant Protection Convention ePhyto Solution in 2022, replacing cumbersome, manual procedures. This piecemeal process undermined food security while compromising the Government’s ambitions to bolster export volumes. In Ecuador, a dramatic reduction in processing time is projected to save $6.2 million a year.

The alliance supported Mozambique in expediting imports of rapid test kits for HIV/AIDS and malaria and other medical goods, collaborating with global business partners Abbott Laboratories, Deutsche Post DHL and Agility. The alliance also partnered with UNICEF to support the Government’s efforts to digitalize and streamline the imports of routine vaccines, including those for diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, pneumonia, meningitis, measles, rubella and polio, reducing wait times of between two and four weeks for import approvals. Encouraged by their collaboration in Mozambique, UNICEF and the alliance announced a global partnership, aiming to help UNICEF deliver critical supplies quickly and efficiently to vulnerable communities.

The trade facilitation delivered by the alliance lowers the time and cost of trade, helping to make businesses and countries more competitive, driving economic growth, creating jobs and ultimately reducing poverty.