"Council of 100" Meetings at the World Economic Forum, Davos

By: Katherine Marshall

January 28, 2007

The Executive Group of the Council of 100 met as part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos; the C100, briefly, is a WEF initiative (rather atypical among WEF activities) that aims to further dialogue and understanding between "the Islamic World" and "the West". At present the group includes some 86 people, and the intent is that they be drawn from both the Islamic world and western societies, and from five major sectors: business, politics, religion, media, and civil society. The C100 meetings are thus a rare place, perhaps unique, where such broad cross sector representation engages on the complex issues for West Islamic relations. The co-chairs are Lord Carey (former Archbishop of Canterbury) and Princess Lolwah (Saudi Arabia) - who recently succeeded Prince Turki. I have been part of the group over the past three years, and am an Executive Group member, with specific responsibility for an education sub-group; I was at Davos in that capacity.

This note focuses on the quite wide range of C100 activities at Davos, which dominated my participation, but also includes brief comments on the "Davos mood" and on a variety of non-C100 activities I attended, focusing on operational implications for the World Bank: briefly these included various discussions on education, water, adolescent girls, African agriculture, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and the overall aid climate.

Davos 2007

The Davos meetings were larger than ever before and seemed to involve an even greater range of overlapping activities. The full program is available at an ever improving World Economic Forum website. Of note this year was a structured system of blogs which covered almost every inch of activity at Davos from weather and ambiance to personalities and pronouncements. The overall theme this year was "The Changing Power Equation", with particular attention to growing global roles of China and India.

Among the many prominent political leaders present Angela Merkel and Tony Blair were particularly visible as was Gordon Brown. Many remarked that the American presence was less noteworthy than in the past, though political, business and civil society leaders were prominent in many settings. As in the past there was considerable focus on issues for the Middle East, with the notable presence of Prime Minister Abbas, Vice Prime Minister Livni, and Simon Peres. A moving plenary session titled "Enough is Enough" featured youth voices from the Middle East (One Voice) calling for peace and action.

Two issues that the Davos "buzz" focused much attention on this year were climate change and the implications of technology change (both trends towards and tensions involving "convergence" - put simply, the varying pulls of cell phones and computers. Climate change was seen to emerge as the "surprise" focus with many commenting on how it had catapulted to the top of discussion agendas. Sadly, that also suggests that issues like global poverty and equity (which were the "unexpected" agenda leaders in past years) plainly slipped down the agenda. Overall the tone seemed rather serious, with notably less celebrity presence; cartoons were invisible this year in contrast to a "cartoonists constituency" in past years (aftermath of Danish cartoon controversy). Many detected a somewhat somber temper to the meeting, though one characterization was that the business mood was upbeat while the political representatives tended to be far more subdued. It was striking that, in contrast to earlier years, while security was tight there was little evidence of protesters and little talk of anti-globalization movements, including limited discussion of the parallel World Social Forum; a few people came to Davos from the WSF meeting in Nairobi (Mary Robinson, Kumi Naidoo that I heard about). There was no explicit explanation of why but the religious leader group, established after September 11, 2001, was far less structured and smaller this year, and in many respects converged with the C100.

Among topics in the category of general "atmospherics" was considerable discussion, woven into several sessions and a focus of live video and media coverage during the meeting itself on "avatars" and the internet world of "second life". While I was not able to grasp fully the intriguing sense of importance of these themes, several sessions were devoted to them. It was seen as an indication both of the rapidly increasing force and presence of internet worlds with far-ranging effects on behavior and thus markets, as well as awareness of the very large and growing role these technologies play, in social and commercial terms, among young people. There was considerable visibility both for the Global Leaders of Tomorrow group (250 leaders selected each year) and the social entrepreneurs who were present throughout the Davos events. The Open Forum (the closest part of Davos to public sessions) was packed for all sessions I could attend, with an agenda that largely followed the overall Davos script but with particular focus on ethical and religious dimensions.

On facts, Davos 2007 included 2400 participants, 800 among them CEOs of companies. 211 counted as "public figures" including 24 heads of state and 85 cabinet ministers. 482 participants were counted as civil society, including 161 from academic institutions and 270 recorded as media leaders. 22 religious leaders participated in that capacity. Of 228 official sessions, some 50 were webcast; over and above were a very large but hard to count number of private sessions.

The C100

The main meetings of the C100 (when all members are invited to participate) coincide with the WEF's Middle East regional meeting (thus in Jordan in May this year) but the Executive Council meets on other occasions including at Davos. There were several private C100 sessions, both for a broad "discourse" about agendas and issues and working meetings on specific topics. Prominent among these were presentations on the planned new Annual Report on West Islamic relations which the C100 will henceforth produce (John deGioia, President of Georgetown University, will be the lead author).

The C100 per se was the focus of one plenary session, titled "Rules for a Global Neighborhood in a Multicultural world"; moderated by Tom Friedman; panelists included Prime Minister Badawi, Mohammad Khatami, Jim Wallis, Jean-Francois Cope, Princess Lolwah, and John DeGioia. The session was rather somber, echoing the major C100 themes outlined below, especially the focus on new thrusts in education to encourage multicultural understanding, as the primary means to counter the dangerous and looming issues of extremism (Cope called the problem a "clash of ignorance", not a "clash of civilizations". A standout comment was Princess Lolwah's response to a query about her wish: "that women can drive" in Saudi Arabia, she responded.

Members of the C100 featured in several other Davos sessions, both in the main Davos meeting and the Open Forum. Of special interest were private C100 meetings with the Global Leaders of Tomorrow and with a new media council (the session title was telling: "Fanning the Flames: Is the Media Fueling the Clash of Civilizations?").

My sense of some key themes, and some significant new nuances threaded through the discussions, follows (with due respect for hazards of distilling simplified messages from diverse and complex engagements and voices):

-Compelling sense of dangers and opportunities in interfaith tensions today, globally but above all else in the Middle East. Far more attention by leaders from all sectors is needed to what lies behind cross culture conflict and avenues to solutions. There is an exponential increase in interfaith and dialogue activity which is far too little remarked and understood, also very significant gaps and dissonance.
-Several voices called for more active efforts to reach beyond "comfortable" voices to those closer to extremist positions. Evoked several times was the example of northern Ireland where the turning point in moving towards solutions was seen as coming only when more extreme voices came into dialogue and engagement
-Vital importance of education - a theme that came up time and time again. This involves BOTH raising education levels and assuring equity AND active, aggressive efforts to enhance teaching about "the other" and preparing all societies and citizens to engage in a dynamic multicultural world.
-Information, knowledge and media are obvious key elements but not enough is done to define clear pathways.
-Need to engage religious leaders in public policy to achieve ends of stable and principled societies in a globalized world but likewise to engage political and business leaders more actively with faith communities and leaders
-All in all a somber vision emerging of increasing instrumentalization of religion accentuating tensions fueled by growing sense of deprivation, denial of justice, poor future prospects, and limited hope for a better future.
-Empowerment was a term evoked often but also often without a very specific sense of priority actions to achieve it.
-Need to remind with blunderbuss force commentators and actors of the great diversity within Islam and the importance of trends, leaders, and forces in particular in Southeast Asia and Africa.

The major private discourse session focused on the UN High Level Group report on the Alliance of Civilizations, issued in November, and aimed to draw lessons from this experience as the broad objectives echoed in many respects the core mandate of the C100. The meeting included C100 members present at Davos plus a quite broad group of invitees, which included religious leaders and various interested individuals.

The wide ranging discussion focused on:
(a)moving from dialogue and discourse to action;
(b) finding ways to amplify the important voices of moderation, within and beyond Islamic circles and to get attention for important dialogue work (the relative silence on the UN Alliance report was a source of concern); and
(c) roles of religion but also business and other communities, and especially need to bring political voices and leaders far more prominently into discourse.

A second discourse meeting focused on presentations by Shaukut Aziz (Prime Minister of Pakistan) and Tzipi Livni (vice Prime Minister of Israel). This was a striking meeting in the messages of concern and peace, but they took place in parallel without exchange, thus without a real vestige of dialogue.

The C100 Executive Committee working session about plans for the Annual Report was quite brief but focused on two of the four major elements that are the foundations of the report (opinion surveys, presented by Gallup International, and media surveys by Media Tenor; the other two elements were discussed in passing: a survey of dialogue activities and background papers and short essays by specialists including C100 members). Plans call for the first report to be a focus at the Davos meeting of 2008. This is a key and exciting potential instrument aimed both at enhancing the patchy knowledge of what is happening and underlying trends and helping to define and shape a practical, pragmatic agenda looking ahead.

Other Sessions: Especially Education

I participated in three sessions on education, the first a working session on the Global Education Initiative, the second a partnership meeting also focused on the GEI that featured Queen Rania, Ahmed Mahmoud Aziz (PM of Egypt), Bill Gates, Peter Smith (UNESCO), Craig Barrett (Intel), John Chambers (CISCO), and Lord Carey, and an interesting session termed "the Wisdom of Youth" that involved a group of young people presenting proposals to Gordon Brown and Queen Rania; what was striking was the sharp focus of their proposals on education, notably on quality and on multicultural programs. The GEI sessions built on the WEF initiatives, which began in Jordan in 2003 and now also extend to Egypt and Rajastan.

A key feature has been creative partnerships with major technology firms, notably Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, and Sun Systems. The discussions were somewhat celebratory in tone with a sense of important achievements, but there was also considerable focus on what should come next, and there the C100 agenda of qualitative dimensions of education and multicultural dimensions potentially comes into play. There was much discussion of various forms of new funding, including a "Catalytic Fund" but also discussion of a new mechanism that was described as similar to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, devoted to education. Queen Rania brought in a delightful dimension noting that the event took place on the birthdate of Lewis Carroll, inventor of the world's most outrageous royals, and urging her audience to take inspiration from the White Queen's admonition to imagine a slew of impossible things "even before breakfast".

I attended a private session on the WEF Water Initiative which was striking for its very sober tone. The sense, articulated especially by the President of the EBRD but echoed by several other partners, was that the rosy language of partnership obscured serious problems in many regions of the world and a major rethinking was in order. All aspects of partnership from basic motivation to legal and financing instruments are understood very differently by different parties.

I was (improbably) a speaker at a dinner on "The Singles Economy" which proved unexpectedly interesting. Other speakers included Ariana Huffington (who put in a very brief appearance), Brad Herbert from Best Buy, Dagmar O'Conner, psychologist and sex therapist, with Peter Sullivan as moderator. Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco, was an active participant. The focus was on the role of women in emerging and changing marketing and economic trends but the discussion turned also to basic demographic trends and recognized the reality that most single women are not those portrayed on "Sex and the City" and similar media phenomena (though these images do shape many attitudes across the world in significant ways), but in fact are poor with real and mostly unrecognized and unmet needs.

Some similar themes echoed in a session on adolescent girls, sponsored by Nike and the UN Foundation and ably led by Mary Robinson, Nicholas Kristoff, and Gene Sperling and with inter alia Sadako Ogata. This session built on an earlier conference for girls in South Africa and was concerned but optimistic in tone. A lunch session on philanthropy was oversubscibed and particularly popular, and focused on a theme resonating through various facets of the WEF which is the role of social entrepreneurship in shaping action but changing the face of both charity and philanthropy.

I attended a particularly depressing (and packed) Open Forum discussion titled "Billions in Development Aid: What are the Results?" Bill Easterly's very negative comments about foreign aid tended to dominate a session that included several African leaders (Jayaka Kikwete, President of Tanzania, Maria Ramos, and Nenade Usman - Nigeria's Finance Minister), Walter Fust, Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Jurg Krummenacher, Swiss Caritas.

What I found depressing was Bill's story line, with its strong negative thrust tempered only lightly by qualifications, and the difficulty the other panelists seemed to find in making a counter case effectively. The basic difficulty is that those who have worked long years in development know well that these are complex issues and that nuance is an essential part of learning. But the basic conviction that lessons have been well learned and that there is a positive and clear path ahead is hard to convey in the face of an unqualified argument dwelling on waste, corruption, conflicting motivations and ineffectiveness. I would urge some brainstorming about how to address both the important arguments that are raised and ways to engage in a more effective discussion about them.

I will be following up with colleagues on numerous bilateral discussions; of particular interest was the keen interest of Prince Phillippe of Belgium in the work both of the World Bank's Development Dialogue and Georgetown University's Berkley Center, of Christoph Stuckelberg (Global Ethics Institute) in the work of both institutions on linkages between religion and anti-corruption work, and Mustafa Ceric (Grand Mufti of Bosnia Herzogovina) in exploring possible joint religion/development avenues in the Balkans.

The work of the C100 was not at all a focus of media attention in the vast array of coverage of Davos, probably in large measure because so much took place in the Davos "private space". Among my various media contacts, I was quoted in an interesting Reuters commentary on the ethics around global warming. An amateurish photographic effort to capture the effect of barbed wire enclosures around the meeting cutting through fresh fallen snow attracted sharp attention from several earnest soldiers.

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