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Why are Angelina Jolie and so many artists in Davos ? Celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, Lionel Richie, Richard Gere or Sharon Stone were very active this year at the Annual Meeting. Of course it has been a rare moment for the participants to exchange ideas during multiple sessions and dinner with them, but it is not the most important.

Their talent helped them build personal brands and those artists can use these platforms to go beyond authenticity and become social actors. No government and few consumer brands such as Coca Cola for example have the same global reach as artists of this dimension. What they do and what they say carry a message to all layers of society, to all the countries in the world.

When Angelina Jolie or Sharon Stone stand up to help poverty, to fight AIDS or talk about climate change, what they say is often understood by people who would not get it the same way if the message was coming from their governments or other sources of information.

Angelina Jolie is Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva.