EuropaWorld 26/1/2001 2001: The World Economic Forum (WEF)

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an independent Foundation bringing together corporate, intellectual and political leaders. Its mission is to provide an impartial, international platform for consideration and discussion of the key issues on the global agenda. In so doing, the WEF aims to not only articulate the major problems facing the world, but to find solutions to them; thus helping address some of the major challenges confronting humanity..

The origins of the WEF began in the Swiss mountain town of Davos in 1971 when Klaus Schwab, a Swiss Professor of Business Administration, invited a large number of Europe's chief executives to discuss the challenges facing European business in the international marketplace. Gaining the patronage of the European Commission, the 'European Management Forum' was born - a non-profit foundation with a mission to use experience sharing and dialogue to further economic growth and social progress.

Following the success of the first conference, 'Country Forums' were created two years later, to bring together the international business community with the political and economic leaders of specific countries. Although concentrating at first on management issues, the scope of discussion soon expanded to include the interdependent political, economic, social and environmental issues as well.

In 1976, the Foundation transformed itself into a membership organization. Members' fees would finance the work of the Foundation, in return for the networking opportunities and the access to cutting edge knowledge that the Foundation's conference and research activities provided.

With the creation of the first Arab-European Business Leaders Symposium in 1976 and the first Latin American-European Symposium in 1977, the Foundation's activities took on an increasingly global perspective. In 1979, the first annual WEF World Competitiveness Report was published. Having long-since expanded from its original European base, the name of the Foundation was changed to the World Economic Forum in 1987.

Since then the WEF has grown to a 1,000 strong membership of some of the world's foremost enterprises, characterized not just by economic success in the marketplace but by the global dimensions of their activities and their role as leaders of their region or industry. The WEF annual meeting in Davos has also become a major gathering of world leaders - from industry, government, civil society, academia and the media. The annual meeting, described by WEF as "the world's global business summit" sets out to allow these leaders to debate strategies and formulate responses to some of the most pressing global issues and challenges.

This year's annual meeting focuses on the ever-relevant theme of the digital divide and how world leaders can use their collective ability to devise a more inclusive global community. Along with the 1,000 WEF members, around 250 political leaders, 250 prominent academic experts in every domain, including many Nobel Prize winners, and some 250 media leaders are expected to attend.

The strategic direction for the WEF is provided by a Foundation Board of international public and private sector leaders, under the Presidency of Klaus Schwab - the original founder. Executive management on a day to day basis is undertaken by its Management Board from WEF Headquarters in Geneva.

More details of the WEF can be found at their website http://www.weforum.org, which also highlights this years annual meeting at Davos, currently in progress. Forum News Daily - a venture of the The Earth Times Foundation - a non-profit foundation covering the UN and related social, economic and environmental issues - and the WEF also carries daily coverage of the meeting and can be viewed from http://www.earthtimes.org/forumnewsdaily.htm