Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Davos | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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The advocates of “globalization” have headed to what they consider the most important destination, namely, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. They meet to communicate and make suggestions and to discuss the most important economic, political, academic and cultural issues in a unique atmosphere and in a stunning geographical setting. This year, the forum is tackling issues concerning peace, stability and intellectual property rights.

In previous years, the forum launched a number of initiatives and held several meetings that focused on development issues and bilateral ties between distant parties. The forum was the first to brand the Middle East and North Africa region as “MENA” considering it a single economic bloc and a single market. The forum was the first to take notice of the remarkable economic rise in both India and China, preparing the necessary publications and conferences for them. The forum waged upon peace in the Middle East; however this was not realized and the tangible steps towards were not taken. On several occasions, the forum issued warnings and important statements with regards to severe climate change and the detrimental and possible results of the Greenhouse Effect.

The forum, the first to promote the concept of economic globalization in its current form, was, and still is, an advocate of removing any obstacles to opening up the markets; yet at present it faces considerable challenges. There are various developing reactions in several countries around the world that were afflicted for “unfair” reasons that had negatively affected their social statuses and caused disintegration within their structures.

Today, more so than ever before, the forum is asked to boldly reveal the dangers of globalization and the unfair interaction that has taken place over the past few years. The forum is also required to highlight the main factors that led to this and to suggest ways and mechanisms that could be used to rectify these errors so that the concept of globalization, that the world has warmly received, would not become elitist whereby issues are considered and calculated in an unjust manner.

Davos is an important “concept” that was launched in 1971 by Klaus M. Schwab; today this man is more important than many of the world’s presidents. Not only is he a decision maker, he also allows dreams to be realised. The greater challenge however remains; to bring about fair results for all parties rather than a chosen few.