But for a quirk of fate, you would have been forgiven for having never heard of the existence of a small town in the Swiss Alps called Davos. After all, it is no more than a ski resort with less than ten thousand permanent inhabitants offering no interest for anyone in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world for that matter. But Davos, for all its previous obscurity, is now famous the world over. This is because since January 1971, at the invitation of Dr. Schwarb, a German academic, stakeholders in various aspects of the ordering of the global economy have descended on the otherwise sleepy village of Davos. For a few January days, Davos takes its place in the wintry sun as the most influential CEOs in the world hold discussions with each other, with heads of state, academics and other groups of people who have been recognised as contributors to the global economic order.
According to Perplexity AI, the guest list at the last Davos meeting which occupied a good part of last week included about 3,000 participants from roughly 130 countries. This included around 400 senior political leaders and more than 60–65 heads of state or government. Roughly 800–850 CEOs, founders and chairpersons of major global companies. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala in her capacity as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation was also present but not representing Nigeria at that venue. This distinguished guest list is a far cry from the few CEOs of European companies who were invited to the first Davos forum in 1971. Now, private jets of every magnificent description annually turn all the airports around Davos into a massive jet parking lot for the world’s richest CEOs, heads of state and others with enough clout to operate expensive private jets, for a few days. They come on this yearly pilgrimage to meet and discuss what exactly?
One would have thought that their major preoccupation would have been to jointly improve the flow of world trade with a view to decreasing poverty in those parts of the world where degrading poverty is making a mockery of human existence. These are places where people have no choice but to battle on, on less than $2 a day. Their attention should also be turned on people in the rich countries who are marginalised to the level of those wretches facing anonymity and extinction in the poorest parts of the world. What is the use of all those words poured out in Davos every year if a significant minority of the world is left staring into the abyss of extreme economic disadvantage whilst a miniscule minority swims in an ocean of unimaginable wealth?
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I became interested in the World Economic Forum (WEF) about ten years ago when I came across an article on Davos by Oxfam, the British organisation which has dedicated itself to global charity and is currently active in more than seventy countries all around the world. Founded in 1942 at the height of WWII, Oxfam has dedicated itself to fighting poverty and injustice with the conviction that both have their root in inequality. The focus on the reduction of inequality will be followed by the reduction of both poverty and injustice and the world would become a better place for most of her inhabitants. Every year, in the leadup to the WEF meeting in Davos, Oxfam publishes the state of global inequality using one vital statistic, the number of the richest people in the world whose wealth is balanced by the number of the poorest people in the world. About a decade ago, Oxfam reported that eighty-seven of the world’s richest people held as much wealth as half of the number of the poorest people in the world. That number is put into some perspective if we imagine that those eighty-seven persons will fit comfortably into a London double decker bus without anyone having to stand. It is most instructive that that number has shrunk perceptively over the last ten years even as the number of the poorest half of the world has increased. The number released by Oxfam this year is twelve, only twelve, just enough to fit into a minibus or perhaps more instructively, into a Lagos danfo with space left over for the driver and conductor. The global population today is 8.3 billion people, up from 8.2 billion in 2025. This means that the twelve richest people in the world today, have resources in excess of the poorest 4.15 billion poorest people in the world. This figure simply boggles the mind! Forbes has identified around 3000 billionaires in the world today, certainly an impressive figure which dwarfs by a considered distance, the figure of 140 billionaires reported in 1987 when to all intents and purposes, the world was a saner place. Latest figures show that in the United States alone, there are 924 billionaires with a total worth of $6.9 trillion or 31.7% of global total. But there are other figures coming out of the US which must arrest our interest. 800 of the richest Americans are in control of no less than 3.8% of the nation’s wealth with the poorest 50% of the population having to make do with only 2.5%. Bearing in mind that the USA is by far the largest economy in the world, this figure verges on the scary. And with recent policies put in place by the Trump government, this disparity is set to grow as soon as tax cuts for the rich kick in as they are bound to do soon enough. The USA runs by far the largest economy in the world but a very significant number of her citizens are very poor, even when judged by third world standards. The Davos initiative has been alive since 1971 but in spite of it or is it because of it, global wealth inequalities have increased relentlessly year upon year. And it is clear that this trend will be accelerated in the coming years as the CEOs continue to hoover up more wealth at the expense of the rest of us.
The elephant in the room at Davos this year was a small man in a large suit and wearing a red tie. As the President of the United States, he was expected to make what should have been the keynote speech at the Forum. He made a speech alright but it was so full of air and blather that its emptiness will still embarrass his great grandchildren far into the next century. That speech has been said to mark the end of an old global order, that order that was supposed to bring order to the chaos of the global market place.
If the old order is said to be gone, then, it stands to reason that its place must be taken by a new one and indeed, it is safe to assume that there is a new world order as proclaimed by Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada. He identified the main problem of the old order as being blatantly predatory. Those people or countries, the super powers that had somehow acquired a place at the table of global dominance feasted on those, the wretched of the earth, who were rigorously excluded from the table. They were not even given the dubious privilege of feeding on scraps as they were on the menu. Given that Canada is one of the wealthiest nations on earth, one would have thought that her place on that table was secure but the implication of Carney’s speech was that Canada did not have a place on that famous table and consequently was a victim of the old order. What he proposes is a new order to be governed by a concert of what he called middle powers which would include some countries in the European Union including France and Germany. Those of us on the outside looking in must be looking on with considerable bemusement because as far as we can see, some of those so-called middle powers had guaranteed places around the old table. Canada for one has been feeding on African flesh for centuries. Her first discernable industry was cod fishing off her North Atlantic coast. The best of their catch was sold in Europe for a very good price. The worst was salted and sold to the owners of sugar cane plantations in the West Indies. This formed the staple food of the slaves working on those plantations. Those slaves were of course excluded from the table and it is easy to see that they were the main course on the menu. Canada, France, Germany and other so-called middle powers of Carney’s imagination have been feasting on the rest of us for hundreds of years. And so, what is new about this much vaunted new order? Come next year, the number of those sitting in our pilot vehicle will fit comfortably in any self respecting SUV.
We return to the highway next week.
