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Davos Kick-off for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa

A truly Davos Moment,The Davos kick-off for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The video says it all.

End Female Genital Mutilation Now campaign comes to Davos

More than three million girls’ genitals are forcibly cut every year and approximately 140 million women are living with mutilated genitals. Maternal mortality and infection are just two of the many health effects they suffer.

This issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was brought to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting by Julia Lalla-Maharajh who runs the campaign www.endfgmnow.org. Julia entered her cause into a competition run by the Forum and YouTube, The Davos Debates, to find a person with a cause worthy of the world's attention. Her FGM cause won the global vote.

“In tackling FGM, we can’t go in as an outsider and tell people what to do,” Julia said in the Davos session. “We need to listen to the community and dialogue with them about why they practice it, their perceptions and then share the facts to educate them – especially the health impacts.”

Ann Veneman, the executive director of UNICEF noted that 4,000 communities in Senegal have banned genital cutting as a result of community discussions starting with understanding the health impacts.

“There are 28 countries in Africa that practice female genital cutting but 19 of those have laws criminalizing it. And so it’s going to take a global campaign to stop it,” said Kathy Bushkin Calvin, CEO, United Nations Foundation.

Everyone agreed with Larry Cox, Executive Director, Amnesty International, that FGM is a human rights issue that both females and males need to fight, to protect the rights of the girl child.

They urge you, the global community, to do your bit to end FGM. Watch Julia’s pitch to the Davos Debates, support organizations like Tostan, lobby your MP. International Anti-FGM Day is on 6 February, a week from now. What do you want to do to help stop FGM now?

The Gender Agenda: Putting Parity into Practice

Two teams. One challenge. How can business put gender parity into practice?

The session was a CNBC debate that had its audience engaged and on edge. Presenter Ross Westgate started by laying out the fact that only 2% of Fortune 500 companies have a woman in charge, and if parity equals profits, where are the women?

Team One led by Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP, Carlos Ghosn of Renault-Nissan Alliance and Orit Gadiesh, Chairman of Bain & Co, made the case for gender parity.

“Equality in the workplace makes good business sense,” Sorrell said. Ghosn explained the three steps all business leadership should take to make this a reality: “We need to explain why promoting gender diversity is good for business. We need to lead by example. And we need to entrench parity in the basic processes of hiring, appraisal and succession planning.” Gadiesh summed up by saying that gender parity has to be a strategic priority.

Team Two led by Arianna Huffington of Huffington Post, Muhtar Kent of Coca-Cola and Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, laid out some practical policies.

These included changing company culture. “Right now there’s so much stress to succeed that women are driven away from it. Women have internalised many stereotypes so they’re reluctant to be assertive and express ambition. We also have to educate women that there’s no success without failure and how to confront fears,” said Huffington.

Kent said 70% of Coke purchasers are women and companies need women employed to understand how best to serve their growing female customers. Change some of the processes that are more rigid, and help women especially with the issue of mobility.

The studio audience voted on their presentations and Team Two came up trumps. They then learned what the world thinks of the issue. In a special Facebook poll conducted for the session, participants learned that of 6,000 people polled, 80% of women and 63% of men don’t think gender parity in the workplace has been achieved.

Wrapping up the session was Saadia Zahidi, head of the World Economic Forum’s Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme. “Women make up one half of the world’s resources, and it is imperative for healthy, prosperous and fair societies to engage them equally. And to do this I have three words: implementation, implementation, implementation,” Zahidi concluded.

Bill and Melinda Gates Pledge US$ 10 Billion in Call for "Decade of Vaccines"

Bill and Melinda Gates announced that their foundation will commit US$ 10 billion over the next 10 years to help research, develop and deliver vaccines for the world’s poorest countries.

“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” said Bill Gates, speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

“Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries.”

Bill and Melinda Gates were joined at the press conference by Julian Lob-Levyt, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (the GAVI Alliance), which was launched at the World Economic Forum 10 years ago this week.

Watch the press conference

Brazil’s President Lula Given World Economic Forum Global Statesmanship Award

On behalf of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations Celso Amorim accepted the first Global Statesmanship Award at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010.

“This award increases my responsibility as a leader, and my country’s responsibility as an increasingly present and active player on the global scene,” Lula da Silva said in a prepared text read by Minister Amorim.

The address offered an overview of the accomplishments of the Lula da Silva administration since his first appearance at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos seven years ago.

He noted that “Thirty-one million Brazilians have joined the middle class and 20 million have been lifted out of absolute poverty” in that period.

“I would like to stress that the best policy for development is the fight against poverty,” he said. “It is also one of the best recipes for peace. And we found out, last year, that it is also a powerful shield against crises.”

Introducing the new Global Statesmanship Award, Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, praised President Lula for "His dynamism, courage, innovative and disciplined leadership were instrumental to deliver the results we all know about."

Watch the session

Summary of the Davos Social Media Session

One of the most high-profile and sought-after session at the Annual Meeting was the session on the growing influence of social networks, a workshop where representatives from all main social networks were present.

The discussion, moderated by Loïc Le Meur, Founder of Seesmic included among others Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning, Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn, Owen Van Natta, CEO, MySpace.com and Evan Williams, CEO, Twitter, Don Tapscott, Ngenera and George Colony, CEO, Forrester Research, Randi Zuckerberg, Marketing Director, Facebook, Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, YouTube, Tim Berners-Lee, Director, World Wide Web Consortium, and Michael Arrington, Founder, TechCrunch.

Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook ran a quick poll receiving feedback from over 6000 people on Facebook in only two minutes. Steve Grove from demonstrated YouTube Moderator and you can read the responses here.

Here is the video of the 2-hour session, highlights of the discussions below.

The Power of the Purse

The projected worldwide increase of women's income by 2013 is US$ 5.1 trillion, which is greater than China's expected growth of US$ 3 trillion over the same time period.

At Thursday’s session on the Power of the Purse, 70 Davos participants discussed how women's increase in purchasing power would transform markets and society.

With an estimated 80 percent of purchased dollars spent either controlled or influenced by women, the panellists discussed how by earning and influencing dollars spent people got a deeper voice not just in financial decisions but also in other aspects of their lives.

Of course, these numbers are not consistent on a global scale. One of the most obvious gaps in purchasing power exists between women in the developing world and in the developed world. In Canada over 60 percent of college and university graduates are women, while in many African countries women’s illiteracy is almost a third higher than that of men. This gap becomes more and more evident the faster women advance in developed nations.

And what about the men? As there is a shift in our economic relationships, we must be cognisant of the effect or shift that may occur in our interpersonal relationships.

Although women have taken vast steps towards increased financial illiteracy and financial ownership, the greatest gap that exists in the developed world is still in politics.  Many participants in the room agreed that there needs to be a broader search for potential candidates to fill these positions. The search needs to take place outside the regular channels, and should even perhaps overlook the potential candidate who happens to have the loudest voice.

Finally, an important topic that came up was how new financial power does bring privilege but it also brings responsibility. We are slowly emerging from a recession which has made us rethink our values and our reliance on more and more and more ‘stuff’. Humans will always want more stuff, to accumulate possessions and wealth - but women have an opportunity to be change agents for a more responsible, sustainable and transparent relationship as consumers.

Is it fair to assume that we have to take on this responsibility? I say, we all should.

President Clinton on Haiti: "Don't Tell Me They Can't Do This!"

In a special session Bill Clinton, Former US President and UN Special Envoy to Haiti, made a robust call for immediate aid and sustained investment to assist Haiti as it struggles to build a new and prosperous nation out of the rubble of the devastating earthquake of 12 January.

In partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative and the United Nations, the World Economic Forum will work to increase private sector involvement in Haiti for the long term. "We are reminded of the common humanity which we all share," said Forum Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab.

At its 40th Annual Meeting, the Forum established a special booth to coordinate private sector investment in Haiti. Over 2,500 business, government and civil society leaders are participating in the Meeting in Davos.

Watch the session.

Funding the future clean economy was another topic on the Davos agenda. In a report release today, Green Investing 2010: Policy Mechanisms to Bridge the Financing Gap, the Forum revealed that investment in clean energy has held up better than expected during the financial crisis and resulting recession, but a considerable gap still exists between current levels of investment and what is needed to begin reducing the world's carbon emissions.

The report's authors, Anuradha Gurung and Max von Bismarck from the World Economic Forum, and Chris Greenwood and Michael Liebreich from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, state that "as a result of the continued financing gap, there is an urgent need for policy-makers around the world to implement measures at the regional, national and sub-national level, which will encourage investment in clean energy technology and projects. With this in mind, the report provides policy-makers with a toolkit consisting of 35 different policy mechanisms, which can be used to promote various clean energy sectors. The mechanisms can be chosen based on stage of technological development – R&D/proof of concept, demonstration and scale-up, commercial roll-out, diffusion and maturity – and also on stage of economic development."

Policy mechanisms have to be tailored in the national, state and local context. Mechanisms for a financially viable shift to a low-carbon economy range from the establishment of national laboratories or research centres; requiring public entities to procure clean energy or use emerging efficient technologies; programmes designed to reduce the cost of private lending and improve project economics; and microfinance.

Sarkozy delivers strong words in opening Davos address

The French President Nicholas Sarkozy delivered a strong call to business, government and civil society leaders in Davos to correct the failings of globalization.

"From the moment we accepted the idea that the market was always right and that no other opposing factors need be taken into account, globalization skidded out of control," he said in the opening address of the 5-day meeting.

He called for capitalism to be "re-engineered" by "restoring its moral dimension." He denounced fat salaries, fast profits and global imbalances among other things. He called on leaders to use the G20 forum to rethink, redesign and rebuild the global economic system.

Shortly before Sarkozy took the stage, participants heard first-hand accounts of the situation in Haiti from those helping lead the humanitarian efforts.

"I am struck by the heroism of the Haitian people who've shown great dignity in the face of this catastrophe," said Josette Sheeran, head of the World Food Programme. But she said Haitians are struggling in the aftermath of the earthquake to rebuild their lives.

"Coordination across government, civil-military, and civil-humanitarian agencies works better than it did during the tsuanmi 5 years ago," said Catherine Bragg, head of OCHA.

Read tweets, see photos and watch sessions from the day at http://tr.im/Davos10

Davos 2010 is a-buzz

The 40th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum has got underway.

The Congress Centre is buzzing with 2,500 participants from 90 countries representing business, government and civil society. The ether is also buzzing with tweets, blogposts, webcasts, broadcasts - in fact, Davos is truly a global village as even those without a badge to enter can have front row seats and engage in the action.

The morning kicked off with a session investigating the "new normal" for global growth. Economist Nouriel Roubini, PwC Chairman Dennis Nally and Abraaj Capital Group CEO Arif Naqvi urged international solutions to the crisis and new financial architecture but decried the lack of international cooperation.

Find out what a packed session on the growing influence of social networks discussed and their conclusions here #davossocial

Meanwhile South African President Jacob Zuma was joined by Mark Fish, World Cup Ambassador, Lucas Valerin Radebe, World Cup Ambassador, as well as the Cup's mascot at the Opening Media Lunch 'World Cup 2010 - before the kick-off'.

More insights on the economy, the future of banks, bankers, hunger and health came from the Co-Chairs in their opening press conference.

"We are not meeting in small circles of bankers and regulators. We are meeting with different people with different views from different parts of the world. And my own experience is that you have in this relatively relaxed atmosphere where you have a get together where you have new ideas and can challenge each other...and that is the big advantage of Davos," said Co-Chair Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank.