Town Hall – initial outcomes | Forum:Blog

This is the first year that the WEF has held a town hall meeting (webcast here), in which the participants have gotten together to discuss and vote on what they believe is most important for the world’s future. Here is what the assembled group determined to be the world’s most important problems to be solved:

1. poverty
2. equitable globalization
3. climate change
4. education
5. Middle East
6. global governance

Unfortunately, 43% expressed "low confidence" that "today’s world leaders will take responsibility for making the making the tough choices on these issues."

34% had "moderate confidence," and 18% had "very low confidence."

What would your list look like? How high or how low are your confidence levels in today’s world leaders? Please hit the "comments" and let us know.

Posted by Rebecca MacKinnon at 05:25

Daniel Van Riper

The biggest threat facing our world today: the economic and political takeover by corporations.
A corporation is nothing more than a modified monarchy. It is specifically designed to deliver maximum profit to those who control the corporation. It has no incentive to promote co-operative ventures with the communities from which it feeds.
I have ZERO CONFIDENCE that today’s world leaders are willing to confront this deadly menace, or that they have the slightest idea what to do about it.
I have LOW TO FAIR CONFIDENCE that grassroots uprisings around the world will seriously challenge or possibly destroy the corporate menace, but also destroy most of what we call “civilization.”
I have GOOD CONFIDENCE that the corporate menace will remain unchecked, and will eventually turn the entire Earth into an uninhabitable wasteland.
I hope that helps clarify the issues.
-dwvr
CTD

Re: the list, I don’t think equitable globalization and education are problems! Rather, I think they’re solutions to the other items.
Another solution is disease control. Spending a few tens of millions stopping malaria and polio would do more good than any other social project mooted this year.
Dominik

Here are my questions comments to some problems of this list.
First of all, my basic concern is that this list will stay on paper and nothing will happen.
Questions
Who sets the agenda?
Who leads these projects?
What methodologies are used to manage these projects?
Who is accountable to make sure that these problems will be solved within a particular time?
What are the milestones?
How do we measure the success?
How do we know what is done to solve these problems? With ‘we’ I mean ordinary people like you and me. The WEF should communicate to public regularly to report the progress of the defined projects.
Poverty
Distribute drugs to the poorest for free
‘Poverty is ethically unacceptable’. But three billion people on this earth are poor. So we have a problem with ethics
Equitable Globalization.
‘Fair distribution of wealth’. What about a wealth tax for the rich (western world)?
Climate Change
Invest as much money as possible to develop technologies to get energy from renewables. Suggestion: To cut military research and investments by 50% and put the free money into the development of renewables
Use the TRIZ methodology to find new products and solutions.
Education and Knowledge
Reading and writing skills are key for self help and for a equitable Globalization
Provide free access to the Internet for the poor
Teach TRIZ and other inventive and thinking methodologies (Six Sigma, Brainstorming etc.) to all engineers, economists, sociologists and scientists worldwide
Access to knowledge for everybody for no or reduced cost.
To get more information on TRIZ have look here: http://www.triz-journal.com/
I do not work for the TRIZ Journal nor do I get money related to TRIZ.
Anupam Saraph

I think the overwhelming expression of lack of confidence in today’s leaders at this meeting symbolizes not the failure of the leaders, but of the failure of sustained leadership.
So much of being a leader is filled with the pressures to succeed as a leader, not in the leadership of the cause. Succumbing to this pressure, alas, is the failure of the leader.
When we focus on the leader and not the acts of leadership, we often inhibit the potential of the leader to rise larger than life in the acts of leadership.
Those like Gandhi sustain as leaders because it is their success at leadership and not as a leader that drives their leadership.
Missions, not issues or symptoms, are the most clear ways of identifying cause. They enable sustained leadership.
It is interesting that the forum listed a set of priorities for voting. Interestingly this list is a mixture of symptoms, issues, problems, and structures. Should world leaders address symptoms? Is this list what will drive sustained leadership and accomplish success?
Is it a priority list that a world forum should seek? Or should it seek a mission? Can priorities unify a global village, find common ground, help make universal progress, create a common direction? Are we to still keep tinkering with symptoms?
In fact many world leaders, Narayana Murthy, Charles Prince, Danel Vasella, articulated very well that we were not even addressing the complex issues facing the world.
Isn’t building a global civilization on earth is a single **common** mission that underlies everything that has been said at Davos? Can that actually serve as the unifying mission? That can help focus on more positive contributions to design and enable such a civilization?

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Town Hall - initial outcomes

By: Rebecca MacKinnon

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