Does the World Economic Forum represent the world? Clearly, the answer is "no." A look at the list of speakers, participants and moderators demonstrates that at least 75 per cent of them come from the Western industrialised world. Although this year, there were a number of participants from South Africa (President Mbeki), Brazil (President Lula da Silva), China and India, the continents of Asia, Africa and South America were not adequately represented. As pointed out by Philip Bowring, WEF's "composition does not reflect the political, commercial, industrial or intellectual worlds of the present, let alone the future. Indeed critics would argue that the composition reflects the arrogance and complacence of the West in the face of its rapid relative decline." So, who attends the Davos forum?

Well, by and large, the narcissistic "Davos man" (expression coined by Samuel Huntington) represents either the rich, (the barons of Western capitalism), the powerful (the politicians), or global capitalism's agents like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Trade Organisation.

True, the WEF is not a charity. Only the organisations which are prepared to spend hefty sums of money to participate, are allowed to do so. Many Asian and African governments and organisations are unable or unwilling to spend so much money to attend a conference which from their perspective is dominated by Western interests. If that is so, what about the forum itself? Does it try to provide alternative perspectives on current issues or give only the Western perspective on them? The answer, unfortunately is not an encouraging one. Let us just look at one example. In the words of Philip Bowring, "Despite much talk of the West needing to understand Islam and to develop inter-faith dialogues, it appears bogged down in the assumption that the extremist versions of religion that Islam has spawned are representative." The forum's description of Islam and the world's 1.5 billion Muslims in its "Guide to the Issues" are full of prejudices and simplistic generalisations.

The first World Economic Forum was held in 1971, essentially as a management seminar. Since then, the scope of the conference has been expanded to cover wider areas of human interest. Now the forum has become an informal networking venue for the participants "to search for multilateral solutions to emerging world problems" with the hope that their message will influence public opinion and government agendas all over the world.

This year, the theme was "Taking Responsibility for Tough Choices." Fight against poverty in Africa, climate change, America's global dominance, China's runaway growth, falling dollar and America's fiscal and current-account deficits, and the political role of Islam figured among the issues for discussion.

Africa occupied the centre stage in this year's conference. Clinton, Chirac, Blair, and a host of other speakers put forward their ideas on how to reduce poverty in Africa and elsewhere. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, who is in charge of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, spoke passionately about measures to cut in half the number of poor people in the world within ten years. In his forthcoming book The End of Poverty he envisions a world without poverty by 2025. How can this be achieved? According to Prof. Sachs, an increase in development aid will go a long way in achieving this goal. In his opinion, the industrialised nations should fulfil their previous commitments to give 0.7 per cent of their GDP to aid. At present, the wealthiest nations give less than 0.3 per cent of their GDP to aid. Clinton admitted that "we have never created an effective political constituency" in the United States to make people aware of the need to increase development aid to Africa. The British team put forward an idea developed by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to create a new financial instrument called International Finance Facility "to tap an extra $50 billion in development aid around the world by raising money in advance on global financial markets." As part of Britain's drive to make African poverty relief as effective as the Marshall Plan for Europe after Word War II, it was proposed to re-value the International Monetary Fund's gold reserves, which would allow the monetary fund to write-off African debts. In my opinion, Brown's efforts to help the poorest countries of the world are admirable. However, it remains to be seen whether he can persuade the United States and rest of the members of G-7 to endorse his plan. The next meeting of G-7 is scheduled to be held in July. France proposed a series of international taxes to raise funds for poverty alleviation in Africa.

While no one underestimates the importance of development aid in poverty alleviation, it is not enough. As pointed out by Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, what is absolutely vital for sustained economic development in poor countries is for them to have access to the markets of the rich nations. It fell upon a non-governmental organisation called Oxfam to remind the rich participants in Davos that a one percent increase in African exports would generate more income in Africa than all the aid given to the continent by rich nations in any given year. Globalisation should work both ways. As an Egyptian minister pointed out with heavy sarcasm, people in poor agricultural countries dream of becoming European cows because they receive per capita government subsidy of $2 per day, while hundreds of millions of people in poor countries are forced to survive on less. Just to give another example, a few thousand inefficient cotton growers in the United States become wealthier every year because of generous farm subsidies given by the government while millions of efficient cotton growers in Africa go out of business because they are driven out of the market by these subsidised cotton growers. This is why, despite all this talk about fighting poverty, one becomes rather sceptical about the final results. The reality of the situation is disheartening. In 1980, the ratio of per capita income difference between the less developed nations and those of the OECD was 1 to 30, but in 2004 it ballooned up to 1 to 80.

Climate change was another of the tough issues which provoked a lot of discussion on the Kyoto Protocol which "obliges industrialised signatory nations to cut emissions of carbon dioxide by 5.2 percent of their 1990 levels by 2012" and Bush's refusal to sign it. The protocol which has been ratified by 126 nations comes into effect this month. It was surprising to find that Blair had taken up the issue as one of his main concerns. He used the Davos venue to urge Bush to join a global accord to curb carbon emissions. It was evident at the conference that international pressure on the United States, the world's largest polluter, was growing. There were hopeful signs of increasing domestic pressure on Bush as well. Some US-based multinational corporations, who operate in countries who have signed the Protocol openly asked the current American administration to review its policy. Some of these companies were even thinking of implementing voluntary emission cuts. It was mentioned at the conference that California and some New England states had voluntarily introduced carbon emission restrictions.

As mentioned before, over the years, the WEF in Davos has evolved into a major informal networking venue for Western politicians, economists, bankers and intellectuals to exchange ideas and to influence each other. This certainly contributes to better understanding among the powerful nations of the world. Davos contributes to global peace in another subtle way. The world may not respect the United States (or at least its current war-mongering government), but it certainly fears its overwhelming power and "its disdain for multilateral institutions" like the United Nations. So, the world needs informal networking opportunities where the world (or at least an important part of the world like Europe) can engage the United States in informal discussions on "tough issues." The WEF in Davos, despite some shortcomings, does provide such an opportunity.