The World Economic Forum’s Davos 2024 annual meeting’s theme is “rebuilding trust,” while unironically advocating for “cooperation” between countries.
The unelected organization’s 54th annual meeting takes place mostly behind closed doors in Davos, Switzerland, from January 15 – 19.
The organization’s website states a number of abstract goals for the meeting that “aims to restore collective agency, and reinforce the fundamental principles of transparency, consistency and accountability among leaders.”
WEF mastermind Klaus Schwab will host representatives from over 100 governments, major international organizations, as well as over 1000 partners.
One of the WEF’s four major areas of focus in rebuilding trust is “achieving security and cooperation in a fractured world.”
Finding a long-term strategy for climate and energy is another area of focus, which they state requires balancing the economic costs this will have on individuals.
The group’s agenda doesn’t indicate what caused citizens to lose trust in the WEF or elected governments, but there has been growing pushback against the organization in recent years, in particular after Schwab was recorded bragging about having “penetrated the [Canadian] cabinet.”
Freeland mum on conflict of interest
Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland had a secret meeting with the WEF during her Davos trip last January, documents reveal. Neither the WEF’s public program nor Freeland’s itinerary showed the meeting took place.
Many contend that Freeland’s membership on the WEF’s Board of Trustees represents a conflict of interest, specifically with respect to section 15(1) of the 2006 Conflict of Interest Act. Freeland dodged questions from reporters last January when asked about it.
Schwab praises China’s handing of COVID
In June 2023, Schwab praised China while in the communist country during the WEF’s Annual Meeting of New Champions in Tianjin — lauding the country’s social development and COVID response.
Chinese citizens protesting their government’s COVID restrictions were beaten in the streets – and some even burned alive while forcibly locked inside their own apartments.
But Schwab, 85, skipped over these little tidbits when mentioning how great China’s Premier Li has done not only with COVID in 2023, but the country’s “social dynamism” as well.
