Reuters World News - Davos 2024: A primer on the global elite gathering

Episode Date: January 13, 2024

The 54th World Economic Forum occurs against a complicated geopolitical and economic backdrop. As world leaders, CEOs, bankers and billionaires meet in Davos to try and solve the world's problems, rising inequality and instability have eroded global trust in the institutions they represent. Join host Kim Vinnell and Global Breaking News Editor Leela de Kretser in a discussion about what to expect at this year's event.   Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 54th World Economic Forum kicks off in the Swiss ski resort of Davos on Monday. World leaders, central bankers, billionaires, entrepreneurs and tech giants, basically a lot of the most powerful people on the planet will gather together with a lofty aim to improve the state of the world. Of course, that means different things depending on who you're talking to, and all of this against a very difficult geopolitical backdrop. So what are they tackling and what will actually get done? Well, to talk about all of this, I'm joined now actually by our executive producer of this podcast,

Lila de Kretzer, who is also going to be leading the coverage of the World Economic Forum for Reuters in Davos. Hey, Lila. Hey Kim, how you doing? Yeah, very well. So let's jump straight into it. What should we expect from this year's World Economic Forum? We're actually expecting this year to be different to the years we've had in the past, Kim. We heard yesterday from organizers of the WEF that this is actually the most complicated geopolitical backdrop

that they've experienced in 54 years of Davos-Caring. Wow. We know that the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, is travelling over. We also know NSA advisor, Jake Sullivan, will be there. We're expecting leaders from Qatar, the UAE, who are now serious power brokers in the Middle East, as well as the President of Israel, to attend. At the highest level, we're expecting talks to try to end the war in Gaza, but we're also expecting high-level talks about Ukraine.

Talk me through this complicated backdrop. We have these conflicts happening in the world. What else is setting the scene? Well, we've had a large Ukrainian presence for the last two Darva. And at both of those, Zelensky spoke and high-level discussions occurred about funding the war in Ukraine. But now, of course, what everyone wants to understand is what might be the pathway to get out of the war. And we actually expect that those discussions might occur this year at Darbos, especially with some of the countries that are represented. There will be a large contingent from the global south.

These are the countries that are non-aligned. they did condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine early, but have since stayed on the sidelines of what's been going on in the world. And so we're very interested to hear from them what they might be asking for to set Europe up for a more peaceful existence. As well as the geopolitics, of course, we've also got an unusual economic climate, the shifting kind of interest rate policies around the world from central banks really coming to the fore. And many people don't know what's at stake for the rest of the year. So the weird thing about the World Economic Forum is it's a lot of political leaders, but it is also financiers and a lot of corporate CEOs. And so we're really

curious to hear how they're preparing for a year where we can't quite predict how the economy is going to turn out around the world. It really all sounds like a lot of talking. What actually gets done at a World Economic Forum? It is a lot of talking. And just to sort of set the scene, what happens for the official program at Darbos is there is a Congress center. It is a center that was built in this ski resort. And they have forums. We literally go to meetings. So you will see people from around the world, leaders, the heads of business. And they attend these meetings. They're panels that are held on stage and people go in and watch them. They actually sit there and listen and ask questions of other leaders. And that's the sort of official program of the wef. And it's sort of official program of the web. And it's sort of. supposed to be thought-provoking. And then there's the gigs on the sideline. So a big thing that comes out of Wef is a lot of countries are there to try and do deals. I've spoken to leaders of states and leaders of countries who have literally spent Darbos talking to business leaders and trying to get investment. And quite often they'll walk out of that with deals that are inked. And that is

obviously a really important part of the Wef. We also can see countries speaking to people about restructuring debt. So you'll see the IMF there, the World Bank will be there, the WTO, there will be representatives from all of those organisations. And so there are many, many countries that are facing pretty serious debt conditions right now. So this is a forum for them to be able to speak to investors and to speak to some of those organisations about how they may handle their debts. I was interested to see this year's theme is rebuilding trust. What does that tell us? It's interesting because Some people might argue that it's elite institutions such as the ones that run WEF that have really contributed to a lack of trust. People are questioning whether they can believe the institutions

around them. So I think what is interesting about this is that conflict. It is the official organisation trying to portray itself as a way that people at the very top end, our most trusted institutions can discuss how to make the world a better place without just getting richer. But of course, at the same time, that gap between rich and poor is growing. And that is something that the wef and everyone in attendance is very, very aware of and wants to try to make better. But whether they succeed, that's something we have to say. We've mentioned the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza.

How is that likely to actually factor in? Might we expect protests? So there's usually protests at Darbos in the past they've centered on climate, but we've often had inequality protests as well. It will be interesting to see if we see protests around Gaza and Israel or Ukraine and Russia. What I think will be a dominant story and something that we're certainly getting ready to cover is we're going into Darbos at the same time as the Iowa caucuses. And as we all know, there are issues over Ukrainian aid and how Congress and the US is going to support the wars in the future. So I think a lot of the sessions may deal with the US involvement

in the rest of the world. And that's going to be of great interest. What is it like covering this event? I know I sat in on some of the planning meetings at the start and even just practical things of, I remember you saying, make sure you wear really good shoes because it's snowy and everyone falls over. It is one of the things that's the first piece of advice that we give, you come, take a decent pair of snow boots. It is very, very cold. And what's lovely to see is everyone, no matter how powerful you are, is wearing their suit and they have a pair of snow boots on. And so there's no elite footwear to be seen. It's a very interesting event to cover up, because for a World News organisation, our reporters need to know people in different fields. And what this

gives us an opportunity to do is sit down with people from all over the world. And what I love the most is you'll see leaders from various parts of the world say, oh yes, we definitely want to speak to you. You come from our part of the world, but we would also love to talk to your reporter from China, or who is your representative from the Middle East? Because they want to hear not only from Royder's reporters what they're hearing, but they want to talk to them about their interactions with the rest of the world. And I think at its best, that's what the forum offers. Davos really does sound like the playground of the rich. Is that the case? It is a little bit. When you're up in this ski resort, you'll see there is like a helicopter

pad where billionaires bring in their planes. And we're talking about the Silicon Valley, the richest people in the world flying in, having dinner parties that nobody can get to unless they're a very, very special person. George Soros's dinner was always seen as like one of the bigger highlights of Davos. There is a old piano bar with a piano man where Anthony Scaramucci was famous for staying all night and having a party. And those things definitely happen. There are a lot of dinners and a lot of parties held at night. There are also, I guess, what is the Davos Industrial Complex? There are a lot of people that feed off that. A lot of PR, you walk down the promenade, the real estate has been taken over by large corporations who are

all, I guess, flogging their wares. You'll find houses for everything. So the Facebook house will be next to the state of India house. There will be Japan night where food is offered so you get to understand Japan. So there is a lot of that. And there's a lot of kind of networking JP Morgan throws a party, the banks throw a party. And people are very interested in going to those parties and want to get in. So there is definitely that there's also a lot of posturing, right? This is the world's elite getting together. And what can make it better is when equality is part of the discussion. And so at the same time as you do have the world's elite, you do have activists that are pushing for things to be a better and fairer place. You mentioned some of the headliners

attending, but I also saw the new Argentinian president, Javier Malay, is going. Who will you be watching out for? Yeah, I mean, there are speeches planned. I think Malay speech will be very interesting. The Wef has tended to lean towards the left in terms of the leaders that come to speak there. So the firebrand politics that Malay is offering is not often what they are offering up. So I'm very interested to watch that speech. We're also very, very keen to sit down with the Chinese delegation.

They opened up China at last year's Davos. And that was a big deal. This year, their delegation is expected to be as big as it was going in 2017. In that year, she made a pretty critical speech at the Wef. But what happens now, and obviously there's so much uncertainty around China will be interesting. And the other thing that's going on in the world is the Taiwan elections this weekend. And everyone is waiting to see the results of that. And we'll be there in real time to see some of the Chinese reaction.

It sounds like such an interesting place to be. be a reporter, if people are, like, letting their hair down, maybe also letting their guards down? I'm sure a lot of stories come from these Davos parties. Yeah, it is. As long as we do the reporting the right way, in journalism, there's always the old stereotype that a journalist will turn up to anything with food, right? And I think the trick for all of us is asking the right questions and making sure that what we're reporting affects the people who are reading the news. There's been a lot of discussion about globalization and fragmentation and what's happening with reshoring and millions of buzzwords, fredsuring, all the rest. What we try to do and what we'll be trying to do

next week is actually explain what is going to be happening with not only geopolitical events, but also your economy is going forward. And that's the challenge. And I think if we do our job properly, that's what we'll do. Well, it sounds like it's going to be a crazy, busy week for you. I don't envy you at all, but I do hope at some point you get to enjoy the snow. We'll leave. Leave it there though, Leela. Thank you so much. Thanks very much, Kim. That's it for this special episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Monday with our daily news show.

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