Going to Davos this year would certainly be a very small part of what has to be done to understand and review the magnitude of the Geneva based WEF’s business and influence. The Forum has driven the focus for 30 years, but behind this power celebrities event, the WEF is serious about its baseline « Committed to improving the state of the world ». In any mouth this would sound a little megalomaniac, of course it is, but from a WEF’s point of view, this is the minimum this organization should do. The report is a real masterpiece, with hundreds of premium contributors from many different countries: Professor, Policy Analyst, Minister, Economist, Senior Researcher…

Schwab, the Executive Chairman, always insists on “mapping out clear exit strategies to get economies back on a steady footing”. As the world still lacks a global governing body, many of the WEF recommendations will hardly find their way to national interest driven politicians, but they have at least the merit of igniting the debate on many issues with 139 economies under review in this latest edition. Reading the report reveals a very critical approach of the ideologies in motion behind the report. Taiwan scores well with a #13. Still the WEF uses the terminology Taiwan, China when China itself ranks 27. Switzerland ranks 1st, again when the US step down from #2 to #4. Russia is stable at #63. Ireland goes down from #25 to #29, Portugal from #43 to #46 and Spain from #33 to #42, with Greece, now the worst ranked among the EU27 at #83 (down from #71). At the very bottom, Chad now closes the ranking (#139) from rank #131. But this report, available from the WEF, is about competitiveness and should be looked at with perspective. Not as a still picture.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011, Klaus Schwab, World Economy Forum