WEF at Davos in a fractured world: Will the spirit of dialogue be exorcized or exercised?

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international advocacy non-governmental organization and think-tank founded in 1971 by German engineer Klaus Schwab, and its annual gathering at Davos, Switzerland, was once billed as the biggest talk-show-cum-photo op in the post-Bretton Woods world. It was known for drawing leaders from government, business, civil society and academia together to “discuss global issues and set priorities."

This year’s meeting, its 56th, is no exception. Over 3,000 delegates, including more than 30 foreign ministers, 60 finance ministers and central bank governors and 30 trade ministers from 130 countries are expected to attend its sessions this week.

With India emerging as one of the “most active and visible national delegations," according to a WEF readout, more than 80 Indian CEOs are slated to attend, together with Union ministers and delegations from nine states. The hope, as always, is to attract interest and investment in India from the global corporations whose chiefs will be in attendance.

The theme for this year’s WEF huddle, ‘A spirit of dialogue,’ seems almost laughably naive, given how US President Donald Trump has spent his first year in office taking apart any semblance of it, as if it is something better exorcized than exercised.

It is being held against a background of high geopolitical uncertainty, unrest in Iran, a war in Ukraine, civil war in Sudan, forced regime change in Venezuela and the distinct possibility of a rupture within the US-led military alliance Nato over Trump’s designs on Greenland.

In a telling commentary of the times, a cross-section of more than 1,300 politicians, business leaders and academics quizzed by the WEF singled out “geo-economic confrontation" as the most pressing risk for the next two years, with “outright" war between nations in second place.

Forget globalization, even near-shoring and friend-shoring look like bleak prospects. Just days before the 2026 WEF jamboree, Trump threatened to levy tariffs on America’s European allies if they did not back his plan to annex Greenland.

Like the main theme, the five sub-themes this year—how can we cooperate in a more contested world, unlock new sources of growth, better invest in people, deploy innovation at scale and responsibly, and build prosperity within planetary boundaries—sound divorced from reality.

Critics have long said this Alpine conclave 1,560 metres above sea level tries to punch above its weight but has little to show by way of results on the ground.

That’s on the downside. But the very fact that Trump has chosen to attend WEF 2026 in person, unlike his virtual appearance last year, and will lead America’s largest-ever delegation is proof of Davos’s relevance, even if it seems vastly diminished from the go-go era of globalization.

In a world where rules-based multilateral organizations like those for trade and health and UN affiliates like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have been rendered almost comatose by US rejection, vital signs of life in a forum for delegates to meet and discuss world issues across big global divides is reason enough to believe we can still hope for a better tomorrow, globally.

As the world stares at a ‘polycrisis’ that may be a prelude to a power shake-up that might make every economy quake, ‘jaw-jaw’ must prevail over ‘war-war.’