Davos summit’22: Working together, Restoring trust

Published in

MUNner’s Daily

5 min readJan 31, 2022

“Change only works if it’s by the people, for the people”, said Olaf Scholz, the federal chancellor of Germany on the 19th of January at the Davos Agenda 2022.

Traditionally held in January against the beautiful backdrop of Alps mountains in Davos, Switzerland, the Davos summit is the annual gathering of the world economic forum where heads of the state and government, as well as leaders from business, international organizations, civil society, and academia, come together to address various issues at the beginning of the calendar year to shape global, regional and industrial agendas. Founded by Klaus M Shwab in 1971, Davos started as a platform to introduce American management practices to European firms, but now has gone above and beyond that to now being an unparalleled international summit. It is committed to improving the state of the world by building a sustainable and inclusive one.

Last held in 2020 and canceled in 2021 due to the pandemic, the very reason that exacerbated challenges like inequality and climate change it became more inevitable that the summit is held in ’22. Hence, WEF held the ’22 summit from January 17th to 22nd as a series of virtual sessions with the hope to meet in person by the middle of June.

The theme of the ’22 summit “Working together, Restoring trust” included pandemic recovery, tackling climate change, building a better future for work, accelerating stakeholder capitalism, and harnessing the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, pandemic response, the global economic recovery, climate action, technological innovation, and global collaboration in its agenda.

“The year ahead is a crucial one to work together, rebuild trust and shape a better and more inclusive future for all.”
— Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman

Pandemic and the world

The summit kickstarted with an address from Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China urged the world to stand together against the unseen enemy and to quicken vaccination pace in order to close the global immunization gap. He announced that the GDP of China grew by 8% in the last year in spite of the pandemic and that too with minimum inflation and further said that China will remain committed to reforming and opening up while striving to provide equal rights to all businesses before the law.

Experts in the panel of the future of Covid 19 were optimistic that the end of the pandemic is near. Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, alongside Gavi and the World Health Organization, announced the milestone of COVAX delivering 1 billion vaccines doses. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Adviser to the President of the United States was hopeful that although not eliminated covid could become an endemic with international collaboration.

The need for an equitable distribution of vaccines throughout the globe to save lives and to reduce public health emergencies was emphasized by Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, and was backed up by Gabriela Bucher

Global Economy

Hit hard during the pandemic, the economy was yet another issue that had to be addressed undeniably. The past two years have set back all that the nations had done to improve their global standing economically. GDP’s dropped, poverty shot up, inequalities widened and all was back to almost square one. Addressing the issue all world leaders highlighted the need for a strong economic recovery.

As said by the experts the good news is that the recovery has been better than expected, thanks to the central banks and authorities, the world did not see yet another great depression. Financial reform is much needed that promises recovery without being uneven and biased. Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, US Department of the Treasury, prioritized making it inclusive and green.

Climate Change

“We will no longer wait for the slowest and least ambitious. We’ll turn climate from a cost factor to competitive advantage.”
- Olaf Scholz, Federal Chancellor of Germany

Even though the economy and pandemic is important one cannot ignore the pressing need for climate action and that too immediately. The risk and danger of climate change and environmental degradation are looming over our heads ominously. John Kerry commented that no one is moving fast enough to make a climate innovation at a time as now when it’s downright necessary.

Energy associations warn that after the current setback it would now take ginormous effort to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels to zero by 2050.

But the most moving and heartfelt plea for action on climate change came from Matthias Maurer, Astronaut, European Space Agency. He brought out the stark reality of our dire situation by pointing out that if we could achieve the unbelievable, like setting up an international space station out there in the unknown then what is that, that could possibly hinder us from fighting climate change! Truer words have never been spoken, I say.

Technological Innovations

The pandemic fast-forwarded our tech timeline by five years in the blink of an eye. Digitalization played a crucial role during these times and helped to address several global problems.

the pandemic put a damper on the electronic component manufacturing industry that led to several nations deciding to become self-reliant in this sector. Discussions on the importance of green tech and affordability were also put forward.

India at Davos

“Today, India is the third-largest pharma producer in the world. In COVID times, we have seen how India following the vision of ‘One Earth, One Health’ is saving crores of lives by giving essential medicines and vaccines to many countries,”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urged the world to leave behind their take, make, use, and dispose of the economy and move towards a circular economy. he urged the world to take up a ‘lifestyle for the environment to fight the climate crisis through the 3R movement, ‘Pro Planet People’.

Although different solutions, visions, ideas, and innovations were put forward no one could deny the fact that global cooperation was the answer to what the world has been facing for the past two years. Davos set the record straight by bringing together people from all around the globe to put forward visions and work collectively towards a better tomorrow.

“Now more than ever the world needs to come together and collaboratively deliver global responses.”
-Børge Brende President, World Economic Forum

We are now on LinkedIn! Do follow us there!

Follow us on Medium for more for International events, news, MUN tips and tricks, and detailed analysis. Get in touch with us on Social media to stay in the loop -

We also invite guest writers to publish their material via this blog!

Interested in writing for MUNner’s Daily? Go right ahead and fill out this form. We will get back to you soon!