What is the World Economic Forum (WEF)?
The World Economic Forum is the International organisation established on a Public-Private Partnership. The forum includes society's foremost political, corporate, cultural, and other leaders in shaping global, national, and industrial agendas.
The forum strives to model corporate governance of world-class, where values are as important as rules. The forum's guiding principles include legitimacy, accountability, transparency, and concerted action.
Origin of the World Economic Forum
It was established as a non-profit organisation (NPO) in 1971 and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is independent, impartial, and not bound to any particular interests. In all its efforts, the forum strives to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while maintaining the highest standards of governance. Morality and moral honesty are at the core of its functioning.
Accordingly, the following aspects make it unique from the rest of the forums having similar objectives across the globe: - Impartial - Holistic - Global - Forward-looking
Functions of the World Economic Forum
Since WEF is an international organisation with no commercial interest, the forum lays a platform for leaders from businesses, government and civil societies, and various stakeholder groups present around the world.
The forum makes near-accurate prediction or forecast of new geo-economic competition, new regionalism, and new actors by analysing economic developments.
The forum outlines the impact of science advancements ranging from robotics, communications, genetics, and social sciences on the society.
The forum empowers the youth across the globe. It brings them together for causes, such as high thinking, the importance of entrepreneurialism, sustainability, and environmental adaptability.
The forum caters to different stakeholders, as discussed above. It acts as a mediator or arbitrator for them to reach a common agreement on various pressing global issues.
The forum does not arrange for conferences. It believes in more flexible and long-term interaction and therefore has meetings. Accordingly, the forum holds four major annual meetings.
In turn, it allows every participant as much context and engagement as possible over the due course of time. It also aims to ensure the impact of its efforts by ensuring that each meeting is delivering clear outcomes and action points.
Therefore, the forum functions with a three-point vision set:
- Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution
- Solving the problems of the global commons
- Addressing the global security issues
