WEF’s ‘unique blend’ is what makes Davos work

Alois Zwinggi, managing director of the World Economic Forum, rejects claims that the organisation and its annual gathering in Davos is a disconnected billionaires’ club.

Zwinggi said that around 900 of the more than 2,000 participants at the WEF’s annual meeting, which takes place this week in the Alpine resort of Davos, are not from business – but from the science, government, civil society, and cultural sectors. It’s a “unique blend of stakeholders that the WEF has, which is why businesses join the World Economic Forum”, Zwinggi said.

He added that many initiatives have been created at WEF which have had an impact and lasted long beyond the annual meeting. One of these is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched at the Davos meeting in 2002. The WEF has a team dedicated to measuring tangible outcomes, and stakeholders – including NGOs, the public sector and the private sector – involved “all want to see impact”, Zwinggi said.