Davos Agenda Highlights 2022

The Davos Agenda brings together world leaders and innovators to discuss the world’s most urgent issues and help shape the future. This year, the sessions and discussions focused on shaping the principles, policies and partnerships needed in the challenging new context of the pandemic, helping leaders understand the solutions needed to stem the pandemic and drive a robust recovery over the next year.

Read more about our 'Davos' team day, here.

Our highlights from Davos 2022

Technological Innovation

- Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have and continue to drive transformation and developments in industries around the world. Ensuring that technology is used responsibly, whilst solving the world’s most pressing issues for the better, is a huge focus point for technology stakeholders, regulators and governments around the world. In this session, Technology Cooperation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT and Innovation of Rwanda, discussed the importance of understanding the inclusivity challenges, such as access, adoption and affordability that are being grappled around the world, in some countries more than others.

- Over the past 2 years we have seen a huge increase in the use of technology and a shift towards a digital economy. Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, highlighted that the country jumped "five years ahead in digital adoption in almost the blink of an eye."

- Half the emission reductions needed to reach the 2050 climate goals set at COP26 rely on technologies. Technologies are key to building green supply chains and deliver in the commitments made at COP26.

ESG

- ESG metrics: the questions of what metrics investors are using are becoming incredibly important. But what is actually happening on the ground? This session ESG Metrics for a Sustainable Future explores whether the scale of change is enough to protect the planet, people and our future. Publishing metrics is key to gaining customer trust, explains Frans van Houten, CEO, Royal Phillips. ‘Companies have a role to play [in the world’s challenges]. But there is a big trust deficit. The only way to tackle both the big challenges, and create a level of trust, is transparency over what we are doing.”

- Humans have caused the loss of 83% of wild mammals and half the world’s plants, even when over half of global GDP depends on nature and its services. What do we need to do to make a change? This session, Accelerating a Nature-Positive Economy for People and Planet discusses just that as economies face increasing risks from inaction, and that the scaling of food production is coming back to bite us. “Scaling regenerative agriculture…must be a priority. We need to connect producers to consumers; therefore, transparency is important,” said Geraldine Matchett, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Royal DSM NV. Matchett warned that “We have basically damaged planet earth. Every single geography is under pressure when it comes to the food production…it is everywhere we look. We have an absolute emergency when it comes to food production. In many countries we forget that food is a national security topic.”

The Economy

- “The recovery has been stronger than expected,” said Christine Lagarde, the President of the ECB, but governments will continue to face economic challenges in 2022. In this session, Global Economic Outlook, panellists discuss the immediate and long-term actions that are required to stabilise the global economy. "We need a new social contract, and it needs to be inclusive," highlighted Sharon Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation.

- The economic challenges, social unrest and policy uncertainty in Latin America amid the pandemic have added huge challenges to the already pressing issues faced by the rest of the world. "We need to reform the global financial system in a way that it can work for all countries without being biased," warned UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in the Latin America Outlook.

The Pandemic

- 2 years into the pandemic and with more than 50% of the world’s population having received 2 vaccination doses, are we now in the endgame? Dr Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the President, said we might be: “It is an open question as to whether or not Omicron is going to be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for.” In this Radio Davos podcast COVID-19: Is the end in sight?, global experts, scientists, public health leaders, and vaccine makers explain where things stand on the virus.

- Do we have an issue with vaccine inequity around the world? The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described vaccine inequality as the biggest failure of 2021 and is campaigning to get 70% of every nation in the world vaccinated by mid-2022. In Africa, only 7% of the population have received 2 doses of the vaccine, yet of the world’s combined population is at 50%. “The reality is, the world is moving towards the 70%, but the problem is we are leaving huge swathes of the world behind,” stated Michael Ryan, Executive Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme. This session, Meeting the Challenge of Vaccine Equity, explores the failure to ensure universal global distribution and the risks this is causing to our health and the economy.

Read more about Suade and the World Economic Forum, here.