Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, Chrystia Freeland, Jose Manuel Barroso, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sakozy, Nikki Haley, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Jacinda Ardern, Gordon Brown… What do they all have in common?
The Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) is a premier forum for governments, global corporations and international entrepreneurs. Founded in 1971
by engineer and economist Klaus Schwab, the WEF describes its mission as “shaping global, regional and industry agendas” and “improving the state
of the world”. According to its website, “moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does.”
The WEF has been involved in the coronavirus pandemic in several ways.
First, the WEF was, together with the Gates Foundation, a sponsor of the prescient “Event 201” coronavirus pandemic simulation exercise, held in
New York City on October 18, 2019 – the same day as the opening of the Wuhan Military World Games, seen by some as “ground zero” of the global pandemic. China itself has argued that US military athletes may have brought the virus to Wuhan.
Second, the WEF has been a leading proponent of digital biometric identity systems, arguing that they will make societies and industries more efficient, more productive and more secure. In July 2019, the WEF started a project to “shape the future of travel with biometric-enabled digital traveler identity management”. In addition, the WEF collaborates with the ID2020 alliance, which is funded by the Gates and Rockefeller foundations and runs a program to “provide digital ID with vaccines”. In particular, ID2020 sees the vaccination of children as “an entry point for digital identity.”
Third, WEF founder Klaus Schwab is the author of the book COVID-19: The Great Reset, published in July 2020, which argues that the coronavirus pandemic can and should be used for an “economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological reset”, including, in particular, advancing global governance, accelerating digital transformation, and tackling climate change.
Finally, the WEF has been running, since 1993, a program called “Global Leaders for Tomorrow”, rebranded, in 2004, as “Young Global Leaders”. This program aims at identifying, selecting and promoting future global leaders in both business and politics. Indeed, quite a few “Young Global Leaders” have later managed to become Presidents, Prime Ministers, or CEOs (see below).
During the coronavirus pandemic, several WEF Global Leaders and Global Shapers (a junior program of the Global Leaders) have played prominent roles, typically promoting zero-covid strategies, lockdowns, mask mandates, and ‘vaccine passports’. This may have been a (largely failed) attempt to protect public health and the economy, or it may have been an attempt to advance the global transformation agenda outlined above, or perhaps both.
In this regard, some notable Young Leaders include Jeffrey Zients (US White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator), Stéphane Bancel (CEO of Moderna), Jeremy Howard (founder of influential lobby group “Masks for All”), Leana Wen (zero-covid CNN medical analyst), Eric Feigl-Ding (zero-covid Twitter personality), Gavin Newsom (Governor of California, selected in 2005), Devi Sridhar (British zero-covid professor), Jacinda Ardern (Prime Minister of New Zealand), Greg Hunt (Australian Health Minister and former WEF strategy director), French President Emanuel Macron (selected one year prior to his election in 2017), Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (selected back in 1993), German Health Minister Jens Spahn, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (a leading proponent of ‘global vaccine passports’).
