FOR four days, world leaders congregated in the Swiss town of Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF), the worldwide Mecca for business gurus.
The annual meeting, held towards the end of January, tables and discusses the most pressing issues facing the world.
Davos, home to one of Switzerland’s biggest ski resorts, the highest ‘town’ in Europe sitting at 1 560m has been hosting the forum since 1971.
Popular with tourists and located on the river Landwasser in the Rhaetian Alps, the town has played host, every year, to more than 3 000 movers and shakers from the world of business, politics, finance and the media.
And this year’s meeting, the 48th, ran under the theme, ‘Creating a shared future in a fractured world’.
The choice of theme comes off the back of the election of Donald Trump, the Brexit and the rise of the far-right in parts of Europe.
The 2018 gathering sought to make globalisation work for those who feel they are being left behind by the current world economic system.
First named the ‘European Management Forum’, it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987 in a bid to make it a global platform for resolving international conflicts.
Events in 1973, including the collapse of Bretton Woods institutions, fixed exchange rate mechanism and the Arab-Israel war saw the annual meeting expand its focus from management to economic and social issues, and, for the first time, political leaders were invited to the annual meeting in January 1974.
For the first time, this year, Zimbabwe was invited to the forum.
And all eyes were on Zimbabwe’s new President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The invite came against the backdrop of positive rhetoric from the International Community keen to engage and do business with Zimbabwe, after two decades of isolation.
President Mnangagwa’s message was simple: ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’.
“On my inauguration, I mentioned economics and trade co-operation would be my priority in Zimbabwe, rather than politics, in order to catch up with the region,” President Mnangagwa told a panel audience at the Swiss mountain resort.
“Zimbabwe has lagged behind in many areas as a result of isolation for the past 16-18 years. No, we are saying to the world: Zimbabwe is now open for business.
“To do so, we need to look at all the legislation that has been constraining business coming into Zimbabwe to improve the ease of doing business,” he said, citing the country’s indigenisation laws which forced international investors out of the mineral-rich country.
As relations between Zimbabwe and the West continue to thaw, next week British Minister for Africa and Department for International Development (DFID) Harriet Baldwin visits the country, the second high profile visit by a top official from London in almost two decades.
A record number of leaders from G7 economies, including Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, attended this year’s WEF.
Traditionally, American presidents do not attend the forum, but this year Donald Trump made a surprise appearance.
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, delivered the opening address.
Only 10 African leaders were invited this year.
These include Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn of Ethiopia, Vice-Presidents Yemi Osinbajo of Nigeria and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, among others
Other African countries which have been invited to Davos in the past include Mali, Guinea, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire and Gabon.
South Africa has been attending the WEF since 2009.
Senior leaders of businesses such as the IMF and the UN, bosses of national central banks such as Mark Carney of the Bank of England and this time around Zimbabwe’s Dr John Mangudya of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe were in attendance.
The golden networking opportunity was not wasted as Zimbabwe’s representatives networked in private meeting rooms in the main conference centre, at parties and in hotel rooms.
Zimbabwe Investment Authority also attended.
While the forum has been lambasted in some quarters for being more interested in the desires and ambitions of the super rich of the world, WEF insists it is ‘committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas’.
While critics have dismissed the gathering as a ‘mafiocracy’ of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians, the organisation convenes some six to eight regional meetings each year in locations across Africa, East Asia and Latin America while holding two further annual meetings in China, India and the United Arab Emirates.
The mix of hosting countries varies from year-to-year.
Besides meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector-specific initiatives.
Critics would want the WEF to do more to solve issues such as poverty, global warming, chronic illness and debt in the poor nations of the world.
Davos, for Zimbabwe, was an opportunity to make pitches for investment to a large and influential concentration of private players and developed nations.