Annual meeting in Davos The flagship event of the World Economic Forum is the invitation-only annual meeting held at the end of January in Davos, Switzerland, bringing together chief executive officers from its 1,000 member companies, as well as selected politicians, representatives from academia,
NGOs, religious leaders, and the media in an
alpine environment. The winter discussions ostensibly focus around key issues of global concern (such as the
globalization, capital markets, wealth management, international conflicts, environmental problems and their possible solutions). The participants also take part in role playing events, such as the Investment Heat Map. Informal winter meetings may have led to as many ideas and solutions as the official sessions. In addition to the official programme inside the Congress Hall, numerous independent (by invitation only) events are hosted by governments, corporations, and civil-society organisations across Davos. These include the FT/CNBC Nightcap, Open Forum, the Swedish Lunch, Goals House, and SAP House and
Avicii Tribute Concert for Mental Health Awareness. At the annual meeting, usually 3,000 participants from nearly 110 countries participate in over 400 sessions. Participation included more than 340 public figures, including more than 70 heads of state and government and 45 heads of international organizations; 230 media representatives and almost 40 cultural leaders were represented. As many as 500 journalists from online, print, radio, and television take part, with access to all sessions in the official program, some of which are also
webcast. Not all the journalists are given access to all areas, however. This is reserved for white badge holders. "Davos runs an almost caste-like system of badges", according to BBC journalist Anthony Reuben. "A white badge means you're one of the delegates – you might be the chief executive of a company or the leader of a country (although that would also get you a little holographic sticker to add to your badge), or a senior journalist. An orange badge means you're just a run-of-the-mill working journalist." Since 2024 the WEF launched a new badge system where Accredited Badges are issued. These badges have access to the Ice Village, which is a smaller version of the official Congress Hall. All
plenary debates from the annual meeting also are available on YouTube while photographs are available on
Flickr.
Badge categories Secure hotels and secure zone The town of Davos is designated as a high-security zone during the annual meeting, with extensive protective measures led by the Swiss authorities. Security operations include airspace monitoring, military deployments, and the protection of key sites and official delegations. The Swiss Armed Forces support the Canton of Graubünden with troops, infrastructure, and specialised units to safeguard participants and residents. Access to parts of the town is restricted, with secure hotels and controlled zones requiring specific accreditation to enter. A number of hotels in Davos are designated as "secure hotels", providing controlled access and heightened protection for heads of state, ministers and senior officials. The specific hotels receiving this status vary from year to year, but have included the Belvedere Hotel, the Alpengold Hotel (formerly the InterContinental), the Seehof Hotel, and the Hilton Garden Inn. These properties fall within the Secure Zone (Promenade 95 – 101) and require special accreditation for entry (Secure Hotel Badge), functioning as protected accommodation and meeting zones for official delegations during the World Economic Forum.
2025 meeting The World Economic Forum 2025 took place in
Davos, Switzerland, from 20 to 24 January, under the theme
Collaboration for the Intelligent Age. The event brought together approximately 3,000 global leaders from over 125 countries, including 350 heads of state and government, business executives, policymakers, and representatives from international organizations. Discussions focused on
geopolitical stability, economic resilience,
climate change,
artificial intelligence governance, and inclusive economic growth. Sessions covered topics such as the future of
global trade,
energy transition, and the impact of artificial intelligence and
automation on the labor market. Several initiatives were introduced, including policy frameworks for AI regulation,
climate financing mechanisms, and economic strategies for sustainable development. Among the initiatives discussed was the Global India Dialogues, launched by the
Motwani Jadeja Foundation, which focused on
India’s role in global geopolitics, technology, and innovation. Discussions on
gender equity and economic inclusion were also highlighted through initiatives such as the
Global Good Alliance for Gender Equity and Equality, which explored the economic impact of investments in
women's health. The event featured key figures such as
Ursula von der Leyen,
Antony Blinken,
Christian Lindner, and
Sam Altman, alongside representatives from the
United Nations,
International Monetary Fund, and
World Bank. The forum underscored the importance of international cooperation in addressing global economic and technological challenges.
2026 meeting Individual participants ,
president of Colombia, at the 2010 World Economic Forum Some 3,000 individual participants joined the 2020 annual meeting in Davos. Countries with the most attendees include the
United States (674 participants), the
United Kingdom (270),
Switzerland (159),
Germany (137) and
India (133). Among the attendees were heads of state or government, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and heads or senior officials of international organizations, including:
Sanna Marin (
prime minister of Finland),
Ursula von der Leyen (
president of the European Commission),
Christine Lagarde (
ECB president),
Greta Thunberg (
climate activist),
Ren Zhengfei (
Huawei Technologies founder),
Kristalina Georgieva (
managing director of the IMF),
Deepika Padukone (
Bollywood actress),
George Soros (
investor),
Hideki Makihara (
House of Representatives Japan), and Donald Trump (
president of the United States). at the 2024 World Economic Forum An analysis by
The Economist from 2014 found that the vast majority of participants are male and more than 50 years old. Careers in business account for most of the participants' backgrounds (1,595 conference attendees), with the remaining seats shared between government (364), NGOs (246) and press (234). Academia, which had been the basis of the first annual conference in 1971, had been marginalised to the smallest participant group (183 attendees).
Corporate participants Next to individual participants, the World Economic Forum maintains a dense network of corporate partners that can apply for different partnership ranks within the forum. For 2019,
Bloomberg has identified a total of 436 listed corporates that participated in the annual meeting while measuring a stock underperformance by the Davos participants of around −10% versus the S&P 500 during the same year. Drivers are among others an overrepresentation of financial companies and an underrepresentation of fast-growing health care and information technology businesses at the conference.
The Economist had found similar results in an earlier study, showing an underperformance of Davos participants against both the MSCI World Index and the S&P 500 between 2009 and 2014. The
premier of China has delivered a plenary address at each annual meeting.
Regional meetings , chief minister of Maharashtra, India; Sudha Pilay, member-secretary, Planning Commission, India; and
Ben Verwaayen, chief executive officer, Alcatel-Lucent, France, were the co-chairs of the India Economic Summit 2011 in
Mumbai. Every year regional meetings take place, enabling close contact among corporate business leaders, local government leaders, and NGOs. Meetings are held in Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The mix of hosting countries varies from year to year, but consistently China and India have hosted throughout the decade since 2000.
Young Global Leaders The group of Young Global Leaders consists of 800 people chosen by the WEF organizers as being representative of contemporary leadership. After five years of participation they are considered alumni. The program has received controversy when Schwab, the founder, admitted to "penetrat[ing]" governments with Young Global Leaders. He added that as of 2017 "more than half" of
Justin Trudeau's Cabinet had been members of the program.
Social entrepreneurs Since 2000, the WEF has been promoting models developed by those in close collaboration with the
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, highlighting
social entrepreneurship as a key element to advance societies and address social problems. Selected social entrepreneurs are invited to participate in the foundation's regional meetings and the annual meetings where they may meet chief executives and senior government officials. At the annual meeting 2003, for example,
Jeroo Billimoria met with Roberto Blois, deputy secretary-general of the
International Telecommunication Union, an encounter that produced a key partnership for her organization
Child Helpline International.
Research reports winner and Pakistani journalist
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy at WEF in 2013 The foundation also acts as a
think tank, publishing a wide range of reports. In particular, "Strategic Insight Teams" focus on producing reports of relevance in the fields of competitiveness, global risks, and
scenario thinking. The "Competitiveness Team" produces a range of annual economic reports (first published in brackets): the
Global Competitiveness Report (1979) measured competitiveness of countries and economies; the
Global Information Technology Report (2001) assessed their competitiveness based on their IT readiness; the
Global Gender Gap Report examined critical areas of inequality between men and women; the
Global Risks Report (2006) assessed key global risks; the
Global Travel and Tourism Report (2007) measured travel and tourism competitiveness; the Financial Development Report (2008) aimed to provide a comprehensive means for countries to establish benchmarks for various aspects of their financial systems and establish priorities for improvement; and the
Global Enabling Trade Report (2008) presented a cross-country analysis of the large number of measures facilitating trade among nations. The "Risk Response Network" produces a yearly report assessing risks which are deemed to be within the scope of these teams, have cross-industry relevance, are uncertain, have the potential to cause upwards of US$10 billion in economic damage, have the potential to cause major human suffering, and which require a multi-stakeholder approach for mitigation. In 2020, the forum published a report entitled
Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy. In this report the forum estimated that approximately half of global GDP is highly or moderately dependent on nature (the same as
IPBES's 2019 assessment report). The report also found that 1 dollar spent on nature restoration yields 9 dollars in economic benefits.
Initiatives Health On 19 January 2017 the
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global initiative to fight epidemics, was launched at WEF in Davos. The internationally funded initiative aims at securing vaccine supplies for global emergencies and pandemics, and to research new vaccines for tropical diseases, that are now more menacing. The project is funded by private and governmental donors, with an initial investment of US$460m from the governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, plus the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. Between 21 and 24 January 2020, at the early stages of the
COVID-19 outbreak,
CEPI met with leaders from
Moderna to establish plans for a
COVID-19 vaccine at the
Davos gathering, with a total global case number of 274 and total loss of life the virus at 16. The
WHO declared a global health emergency 6 days later.
Society The Global Water Initiative brings together diverse stakeholders such as
Alcan Inc., the
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation,
USAID India,
UNDP India,
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Government of
Rajasthan, and the
NEPAD Business Foundation to develop public-private partnerships on water management in South Africa and India. In an effort to combat corruption, the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) was launched by CEOs from the engineering and construction, energy and
metals, and mining industries at the annual meeting in Davos during January 2004. PACI is a platform for peer exchange on practical experience and dilemma situations. Approximately 140 companies have joined the initiative.
Environment In the beginning of the 21st century, the forum began to increasingly deal with environmental issues. In the Davos Manifesto 2020 it is said that a company among other: • "acts as a steward of the environmental and material universe for future generations. It consciously protects our biosphere and champions a circular, shared and regenerative economy." • "responsibly manages near-term, medium-term and long-term value creation in pursuit of sustainable shareholder returns that do not sacrifice the future for the present." • "is more than an economic unit generating wealth. It fulfils human and societal aspirations as part of the broader social system. Performance must be measured not only on the return to shareholders, but also on how it achieves its environmental, social and good governance objectives." The Environmental Initiative covers climate change and water issues. Under the
Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, the
U.K. government asked the World Economic Forum at the
G8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to facilitate a dialogue with the business community to develop recommendations for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. This set of recommendations, endorsed by a global group of CEOs, was presented to leaders ahead of the G8 Summit in
Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan held in July 2008. In 2016 WEF published an article in which it is said, that in some cases reducing consumption can increase well-being. In the article is mentioned that in
Costa Rica the GDP is 4 times smaller than in many countries in Western Europe and North America, but people live longer and better. An American study shows that those whose income is higher than $75,000, do not necessarily have an increase in well-being. To better measure well-being, the New Economics Foundation's launched the
Happy Planet Index. In January 2017, WEF launched the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), which is a global
public private partnership seeking to scale
circular economy innovations. PACE is co-chaired by
Frans van Houten (CEO of
Philips), Naoko Ishii (CEO of the
Global Environment Facility, and the head of
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The
Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the
International Resource Panel, Circle Economy,
Chatham House, the Dutch
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, the
United Nations Environment Programme and
Accenture serve as knowledge partners, and the program is supported by the UK
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
DSM,
FrieslandCampina,
Global Affairs Canada, the Dutch
Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management,
Rabobank,
Shell,
SITRA, and
Unilever. The Forum emphasized its 'Environment and Natural Resource Security Initiative' for the 2017 meeting to achieve inclusive economic growth and sustainable practices for global industries. With increasing limitations on
world trade through national interests and trade barriers, the WEF has moved towards a more sensitive and socially-minded approach for global businesses with a focus on the reduction of
carbon emissions in China and other large industrial nations. Also in 2017, WEF launched the
Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) for the Earth Initiative, a collaboration among WEF,
Stanford University and
PwC, and funded through the Mava Foundation. In 2018, WEF announced that one project within this initiative was to be the
Earth BioGenome Project, the aim of which is to sequence the genomes of every organism on Earth. The World Economic Forum is working to eliminate
plastic pollution, stating that by 2050 it will consume 15% of the global
carbon budget and will pass by its weight fishes in the world's oceans. One of the methods is to achieve
circular economy. The theme of the 2020 World Economic Forum annual meeting was 'Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World'. Climate change and sustainability were central themes of discussion. Many argued that GDP is failed to represent correctly the wellbeing and that
fossil fuel subsidies should be stopped. Many of the participants said that a better capitalism is needed.
Al Gore summarized the ideas in the conference as: "The version of capitalism we have today in our world must be reformed". In this meeting the World Economic Forum: • Launched the
Trillion Tree Campaign an initiative aiming to "grow, restore and conserve 1 trillion trees over the next 10 years around the world – in a bid to restore
biodiversity and help fight
climate change".
Donald Trump joined the initiative. The forum stated that: "Nature-based solutions – locking-up carbon in the world's forests, grasslands and wetlands – can provide up to one-third of the emissions reductions required by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement targets," adding that the rest should come from the heavy industry, finance and transportation sectors. One of the targets is to unify existing
reforestation projects. • Discussed the issue of climate change and called to expanding
renewable energy,
energy efficiency change the patterns of
consumption and remove carbon from the atmosphere. The forum concluded that the climate crisis will become a
climate apocalypse should the temperature rise by 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. The forum called on governments to fulfil the commitments in
Paris Agreement.
Jennifer Morgan, special representative for international climate policy of the Federal Foreign Office in Germany, said that as to the beginning of the forum, fossil fuels still get three times more money than climate solutions. At the 2021 annual meeting
UNFCCC launched the 'UN Race-to-Zero Emissions Breakthroughs'. The aim of the campaign is to transform 20 sectors of the economy in order to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions. At least 20% of each sector should take specific measures, and 10 sectors should be transformed before COP 26 in Glasgow. According to the organizers, 20% is a tipping point, after which the whole sector begins to irreversibly change.
Coronavirus and green recovery In April 2020, the forum published an article that postulates that the COVID-19 pandemic is linked to the destruction of nature. The number of emerging diseases is rising and this rise is linked to
deforestation and
species loss. In the article, there are multiple examples of the degradation of ecological systems caused by humans. It is also says that half of the global
GDP is moderately or largely dependent on nature. The article concludes that the recovery from the pandemic should be linked to nature recovery.
Global Shapers Community The Global Shapers Community (GSC), an initiative of World Economic Forum, selects young leaders below 30 years old to be change agents in the world. Global Shapers develop and lead their city-based hubs to implement social justice projects that advance the mission of World Economic Forum. The GSC has over 10,000 members in 500+ hubs in 154 countries. Some critics see the WEF's increasing focus on activist areas such as
environmental protection as a strategy to disguise the true
plutocratic goals of the organisation.
The Great Reset In May 2020, the WEF and the then-
Prince of Wales's Sustainable Markets Initiative launched "The Great Reset" project, a five-point plan to enhance sustainable economic growth following the global recession caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. "The Great Reset" was to be the theme of WEF's annual meeting in August 2021. According to forum founder Schwab, the intention of the project is to reconsider the meaning of
capitalism and capital. While not abandoning capitalism, he proposes to change and possibly move on from some aspects of it, including
neoliberalism and
free-market fundamentalism. The role of corporations, taxation and more should be reconsidered. International cooperation and trade should be defended and the
Fourth Industrial Revolution also. The forum defines the system that it wants to create as "Stakeholder Capitalism". The forum supports
trade unions. The 'Great Reset' has also been the target of
several "debunked" conspiracy theories, which heavily overlap with related conspiracy theories concerning the
'New World Order',
Qanon, and
COVID-19. ==Criticism==