Africa finds new friends in Davos
But continent’s leaders not prominent at economic jamboree
● Walking down the promenade in Davos, I came across two charming young surfers from Durban who were serving coffee and soup from a kiosk at a venue that a global reinsurer has taken over for the week of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The two are among the thousands of itinerant workers who come to Davos in the week the WEF comes to the Swiss Alpine town, population 11,000. One limousine driver estimates that about 1,000 drivers come in from all over Europe, earning more in a week than they normally earn in a month.
The town’s retailers and hoteliers make their fortune, too. Almost every shop, hairdresser, bar or bank on the main drag is rented and rebranded for the week by multinationals, consultancies, investment banks and countries that set out their stalls at the WEF. Costs are exorbitant — a hotel room in Davos or neighbouring Klosters costs more than five times the normal rate.
The WEF hosts 3,000 official participants. But there are many more who come just for the multiple events on the sidelines, or to provide the many services that pull it all together, including a free shuttle service that runs between the venues and hotels.
Random conversations on the shuttles and trains are arguably among the most stimulating aspects of Davos — one can hear from an expert about digitalisation and advanced manufacturing, or advances in medical diagnosis, or get an update on the politics and economic fortunes of Venezuela or Ukraine.
The leaders of those two countries were among the heads of government at this WEF, with the unexpected appearance by Juan Guaido, the man recognised by more than 50 countries as interim president of Venezuela, generating particular interest.
Fifty years after Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde founded the WEF, some veterans say this year felt quite flat and the formula quite tired. But for global leaders, Davos clearly still is a platform of choice. Among others, the plenary hall hosted special addresses by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of Iraq, Italy and Greece, not to mention UN secretary-general António Guterres and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
But it was US President Donald Trump who filled the hall to overflowing, with a boastful speech that targeted his electorate — but also took aim at climate crisis “doomsayers” while at the same time signing up to the WEF’s project to plant 1-trillion trees.
African leaders were almost entirely absent from the main stage. A Tuesday “hightelligence level” panel on Africa had Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi and — surprisingly — Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, who is the UN secretary-general’s special advocate for inclusive finance, but Senegal’s President Macky Sall didn’t arrive.
The panel was one of three formal sessions during the week, including the launch of the Davos Friends of Africa Growth Platform, an initiative begun at the WEF on Africa in Cape Town last year to drive the creation of 100-million jobs by supporting small and medium enterprises and startups.
And the WEF has appointed SA’s own Sipho Pityana, chair of AngloGold Ashanti and president of Business Unity SA, to cochair the WEF’s new Africa Regional Stewardship Board.
But Africa, its challenges, and its opportunities — particularly the new continental free-trade agreement — did feature on the Davos agenda, and there were a number of finance ministers and other leaders from the region in attendance. What was notable was how few of them featured in mainstream debates, whether on finance or climate change.
The WEF themes this year were about sustainability and stakeholder capitalism. And where, back in the 1970s, Schwab faced pushback from his funders when he had experts such as Jacques Cousteau calling for business to help save the planet, 50 years on the issue topped the agenda for business people and financiers at Davos, not just the environmentalists or academics.
Consultancies such as McKinsey are starting to quantify the social and economic impacts; insurers and fund managers are paying attention to how to measure and mitigate companies’ environmental footprints and how to quantify the financial risks.
But if climate was up there on the agenda, so too was tech — with talk of technology’s potential but also Hebrew University professor and author Yuval Noah Harari terrifying delegates with predictions that artificial inyear’s
and biotech would enable the rise of US surveillance capitalists, and Chinese state surveillance would hack human beings, undermining democracy — while Huawei’s CEO reassured them that AI would be used in ways that would make the world better.
But for the lucky folk who attend, the power of the WEF is not only in the “thought leadership” to which it gives them access but also in the convening power the WEF has to enable talks with partners and counterparts — and those random encounters which could turn into something big.