'The World Economic Forum: An unaccountable force in global health governance?' by Desmond McNeill in (2023) Policy Insights comments
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a major player in global health governance. From its modest beginnings as a ‘symposium’ in Switzerland in 1971, it is now a large and powerful organisation. It is financed by fees from its 1000 business members, most of them global companies with over 5 billion dollars in annual turnover. It has approximately 800 employees located at its headquarters near Geneva and in regional offices in Beijing, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. The WEF has been variously described as ‘a private NGO’ (Friesen, 2020: 91), a think-tank (Garsten & Sörbom, 2014) and a ‘prominent private international organization’ (Sharma & Soederberg, 2020). In 2015, it was formally recognised as an international organisation, enjoying NGO consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, setting it on what it calls ‘the next phase of its journey as the global platform for public-private cooperation’.
The World Economic Forum is chaired by Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab. It is ‘guided by a Board of Trustees, exceptional individuals who act as guardians of its mission and values, and oversee the Forum's work in promoting true global citizenship’. The Managing Board acts as the executive body of the Foundation, with ‘collective responsibility for the execution of the Forum's strategies and activities’. The Board's membership is ‘divided equally between Members of the business community and Members representing international organizations, academia and civil society’. As Executive Chairman, Schwab remains ‘responsible for the overall strategic development of the organization’ (World Economic Forum, 2019b). As noted below, Schwab's position has recently come under challenge.
The WEF promotes what Bull and McNeill (2007) referred to as market multilateralism, a form of global governance in which the private sector plays a major role. In the 15 years since then, WEF has become a much stronger force, not least in the health sector. It declares its mission as ‘improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas’.
In the following, I first summarise how WEF and its philosophy have developed over its 50 years of existence. Drawing on recent literature, I then argue that three forms of power are particularly relevant with regard to WEF: convening power, discursive power and — more recently —‘entrepreneurial power’. It exercises convening power most notably in Davos, where the most powerful representatives of the private sector meet with heads of governments and international organisations. It exercises discursive power by shaping ideas through its role as a think tank. And its engagement in the design of PPPs, for example, CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), may be seen as the exercise of ‘entrepreneurial power’.
Arising out of this analysis, I address the crucial questions of legitimacy and accountability. I suggest that the WEF might claim output legitimacy, insofar as it can be quite effective in achieving its aims. But it is surely weak with regard to input legitimacy. The WEF is a novel form of international organisation; its members—the 1000 firms that finance it—are from the private sector. But it appears to lack accountability—even to its own members.
