Untitled Document

World Economic Forum Faces International Crisis

The World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting that normally would be held in Davos, Switzerland will be held in New York City from Jan. 31 to Feb. 4, 2002. This year's session is planned as a special meeting to commemorate and show support for the bravery of New Yorkers in the face of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Also coloring the proceedings is the worldwide recession that was deepened by these events. The WEF organizers took these issues into consideration in preparing the agenda for the New York meeting, whose theme is "Leadership in Fragile Times: A Vision for a Shared Future."

The agenda includes six core discussion themes: Advancing Security and Addressing Vulnerability; Redefining Business Challenges; Restoring Sustained Growth; Sharing Values and Respecting Differences; Reducing Poverty and Improving Equity; and Re-evaluating Leadership and Governance.

The WEF, founded in 1971, is made up of 1,000 top business leaders from the major international corporations, 250 political leaders, 250 academic experts and 250 media leaders from around the world. Personal, high-level meetings, in addition to the 13 governors groups and official sessions, contribute to an atmosphere conducive to understanding global economic and political challenges and crafting strategies to deal with them. More than 40 religious leaders will attend and participate in the meeting, as well.

In recent months, the WEF has reorganized, adding a new managing board and four councils (academic, business, NGO and union). It also has formed 16 task forces to address such topics as agricultural trade, global health, digital divide, philanthropy, pension reform and disaster relief.

The heads of state expected to attend this year's annual meeting include German Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der; Australia's prime minister, John Howard; President Thomas Klestil of Austria; Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov of the Russian Federation; the president of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski; President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa; Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo; President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal; President Andr�s Pastrana of Colombia; and President Alejandro Toledo of Peru (see list of additional speakers below).

The participants face a world situation that has altered completely since last year's meeting. The events of September 11, the continuing war against terrorism in Afghanistan and around the globe, intensified Israeli-Palestinian fighting, the world economic recession, the implosion of the Argentine economy, the tenuous situation of the Colombian civil war and a generalized feeling of insecurity in many countries set the stage for different concerns at WEF 2002.

Surprisingly, WEF Economist Claude Smadja predicts a somewhat rosy scenario for the US economy in 2002. Due to Federal Reserve interest rate reductions, a 2% increase in GDP is expected this year. However, investment in new equipment is likely to be modest as investors and business leaders remain cautious. Smadja expects the European and Japanese economies to be basically stagnant. China, now a WTO member, is expected to grow robustly based on aggressive export expansion. The rest of East Asia is also projected to have a solid recovery based on current account surpluses.

Anti-WEF Demonstrations and Counter-WEF Meetings
The preparations for the WEF meeting in New York are being matched by feverish activity among a large number of left-wing organizations, most of them grouped under the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, Another World is Possible and International ANSWER Coalition. They claim that the real agenda of the WEF meeting is "to increase mass layoffs, to slash education and health services, to reduce wages and working conditions, to degrade the environment, to wage war on civilians and to assault the civil rights of all that dare to oppose them." The protesters are calling for five days of "passionate and diverse actions against the WEF" and promoting the following counteragenda:

Cancel international, municipal and personal debt.
Use the freed funds to build housing, schools, hospitals and transportation in New York and the world.
Restore the environment, which is being destroyed by corporate greed.
Stop arms production and supplies and all military aid and action.
Offer a general amnesty for all immigrants.

Protest events will include a National Student Mobilization and Conference on Jan. 31 to Feb. 1, with workshops on such themes as the environmental impact of globalization, the media, medical and tactical training, and corporate influences behind US foreign policy. A march, rallies and direct actions will be held on Feb. 2. The Internet is full of propaganda and preparations for these and other anti-WEF activities, including information on lodging, transportation, organization and activities.

This is not the first time that the WEF meeting has drawn protest from leftist organizations and NGOs. "The Public Eye on Davos," a joint initiative of NGOs from various countries, holds its annual conference in Davos every year at the same time as the WEF. "The Public Eye on Davos" is coordinated by the Berne Declaration, which campaigns against national and international political and economic policies that it considers unfair to developing countries. The World Social Forum also is organized at the same time as the WEF meeting, in a different city each year. Organizers promote the WSF as a civil society alternative to the WEF. In 2002 its annual meeting is scheduled for Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Press coverage of the New York WEF meeting has been light in the US and Latin America, where regional stories such as the Argentine crisis and the Colombian conflict have taken center stage. However, the Mexican newspaper El Economista ran an article from AFP reporting that the WEF would decide on Feb. 4 whether to return its annual meeting to Davos in 2003. This is a controversial issue because of the high cost of policing the anti-WEF demonstrations. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the WEF move to New York owed to pressure from Swiss security forces and police and that the show of solidarity with New York was merely a convenient cover. It also reports that the demonstrations will probably be toned down in deference to the city's experience with terrorism. European anti-WEF groups plan to actively discourage the WEF's return to Davos and are leading a campaign to discredit WEF co-founder and president Klaus Schwab.

Other speakers at WEF 2002: Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry Laurent Fabius of France; Minister of Foreign Affairs Hubert V�drine of France; Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of the Republic of Serbia; Prime Minister Adrian Nastase of Romania; Minister of Foreign Affairs Ismail Cem of Turkey; Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia; President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines; H.M. King Abdullah II Ibn Hussein of Jordan; Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamal Kharrazi of Iran; H.H. Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, crown prince and commander-in-chief of the Bahrain Defense Force; H.H. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, emir of Qatar and chairman of the Islamic Conference Organization; Chief of Saudi General Intelligence H.R.H. Prince Nawaf bin Abdulaziz Saud; Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb of Jordan; Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares of Lebanon; Prime Minister Jean Chr�tien of Canada; US Secretary of State Colin Powell; US Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O'Neill; former US President Bill Clinton. The co-chairs of the 2002 meeting are: Roberto Civita, chairman and CEO, the Abril Group; Niall FitzGerald, chairman, Unilever; Raymond V. Gilmartin, chairman, president and CEO, Merck & Co.; Rudolph W. Giuliani, former mayor of New York; and Yotaro Kobayashi, chairman and co-CEO, Fuji Xerox Company.