WEF’s powerplay partnership with the UN

Photo Credit: World Economic Forum

The WEF is an international, intergovernmental body that is more than 50 years old. It is essentially a private, networking space for business, government, and civil society leaders, and uber wealthy individuals. The WEF stature has grown exponentially, particularly in the last five years, with two specific strategic moves. First ,it tied its mission to the UN’s Agenda 2030 and, second, it created The Great Reset narrative for a post-COVID world. With these moves, the WEF has eclipsed the UN as the most influential body in the world.

The origins of this global organization are traced back to 1971, when Klaus Schwab convened an European Management Symposium in Davos Switzerland for 450 corporate executives to join with European Commission technocrats and industrial associations. Schwab organized annual European symposiums that eventually grew in size and scope, inviting corporate leaders beyond Europe and political leaders from every corner of the world. Schwab’s symposiums morphed in 1987 to assume a greater, global mandate as the World Economic Forum.

It has 650 employees at its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, but today also maintains offices in New York, Beijing, and Tokyo. In 2016, the WEF announced the opening of a new Centre for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in San Francisco. A year earlier the organization was designated a NGO by the Swiss Federal Government which allowed for public revenue streams. The WEF is funded today by public subsidies and membership fees of 1,000 corporations, as well as affluent individuals such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Fink.  

The WEF’s reach and influence is quite remarkable. It has assembled and has the cooperation of the world’s uber rich, companies, leaders, lawmakers, academics, and medical, business, and trade organizations. It has also welcomed into its fold diplomats from the UN and officials from the International Monetary Fund.

The organization has given itself a significant, yet amorphous mission statement: “The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. It provides a global, impartial and not-for-profit platform for meaningful connection between stakeholders to establish trust, and build initiatives for cooperation and progress.”

At its annual meetings, the WEF delves into everything from central banking, AI, and environmental regulations, to the politics of Ukraine and Sudan.  

One of the 2023 opening speakers at Davos was actor Idris Elba who described the dynamics of the WEF in this way: “Today it is well recognized that the economic, social, and natural well-being of our planet are completely interrelated, and Davos may be one of the first platforms to get it. We understand the power and the change that can come from this room. Davos has become the de facto platform for governments, for corporates, for philanthropists, for activism, for protesters to mobilize quickly.”

In a special to The Globe and Mail reviewing the agenda of the 2023 Davos meetings, Canadian business strategist Don Tapscott stated that in the last 20 years he has witnessed the WEF “evolve from a think tank into what you could call a “do tank,” and now a global network that engenders dozens of communities that engage tens of thousands of people to research, discuss and address many global problems year-round.”

The WEF has power like no international body before -- and it wields it like no other international body before. Consider that, unlike the UN where countries will send representatives to debate and vote on global matters in an open forum, the WEF convenes meetings where there are no accountable representation, no debate, and no open vote. Some have described the WEF as a “global country club”: conversations are private, and agendas and decisions are made behind closed doors. In this way, we no longer have an international forum of nations, but it is a global body of self-interests.  

There are conspiracy theorists that will say Klaus Schwab and the WEF technocrats have a manipulative, direct control over participating government leaders. But this is not correct. The WEF power and influence is found in its indirect pressure, which is applied at the Davos gatherings, at those closed door meetings for participants to “join in” and commit to implementing global action plans. And then each year the participants reunite at Davos and are asked of their progress. In this way, the WEF sets global agendas and influences national ones.

The WEF’s private-public agendas are usurping national agendas. In what is now a 25-year old Forbes interview entitled “Power broker”, Klaus Schwab states matter-of-fact, “At any rate, global companies do not fit behind neat national borders. The sovereign state has become obsolete.”

The WEF coordinates global powerplays, often kept from the public and its elected representatives. One recent example is from the 2023 Davos meetings involving Canada’s Deputy PM and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. She is a WEF trustee and her conflict of interest was probed in my previous column. Freeland participated in two sessions on Ukraine, yet there is nothing known of those discussions because they were closed door meetings with no public record.

Canadians were simply told of the WEF Trustee’s activities: “The Deputy Prime Minister will hold meetings with business leaders and other participants at the World Economic Forum throughout the day. Closed to media.”

Noe Chartier, in his investigative Epoch Times piece, did report the following: “Participants in the private session included U.S. climate czar John Kerry, Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended remotely. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink also attended, along with other financiers.”

The matters discussed at Davos are significant. Everything from global financial planning to military campaigns are contemplated. Plans are drawn up, commitments may be made. Unlike the UN, where there would be debates and public announcements regarding the world’s economic order and rule of law, the WEF operates differently. It manages discussions and provides private space for top down planning, without the need to regard shareholders or consumers.

Schwab has a term for this manner of decision making: stakeholder capitalism. It flips our traditional notions of representation and capitalism on their head.

So, in the last five years, the WEF has made great headway establishing their “new way of doing capitalism.” It has entrenched itself as the decision making body, and has legitimized its mission and agenda, now an immediate one with a 2030 timeline.

Let’s now review the details of the WEF’s two steps: the UN’s Agenda 2030 and advocating for “The Great Reset.” I will also review the Canadian participation, making references to the activities of PM Trudeau as well as the WEF Trustees Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney (Carney is a “former trustee” now that he has skulked away from his trustee position, unannounced, so that he would not have to answer to it during his leadership bid).