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Geneva/New York, January 17 – World government and corporate leaders have begun addressing the week-long, virtual annual meeting of the Davos Agenda 2022 in Switzerland with the pandemic and how the disease has affected the global economy and widened the gap between rich and poor countries as top issues. Organizers of the prestigious conference said the Davos Agenda virtual event “offers the first global platform of 2022 for world leaders to come together to share their visions for the year ahead.”

“Everyone hopes that in 2022 the COVID-19 pandemic, and the crises that accompanied it, will finally begin to recede,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. “But major global challenges await us, from climate change to rebuilding trust and social cohesion. To address them, leaders will need to adopt new models, look long term, renew cooperation and act systemically. “

The event at the scenic Swiss Alps resort of Davos (January 17-21) features heads of state and government, corporate CEOs and civil society groups. It will also mark the launch of several Forum initiatives including efforts to accelerate the race to net-zero emissions, ensure the economic opportunity of nature-positive solutions, create cyber resilience, strengthen global value chains, build economies in fragile markets, organizers said.

UN leader blasts unequal vaccination as “shameful”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his address that the world has failed on one particular demand to assist poor and vulnerable countries obtain Covid-19 vaccines and help the World Health Organization’s program to vaccinate 40 per cent of people in all countries by the end of 2021 and 70 per cent by mid-2022.

“We are nowhere near these targets,” Guterres said. “Vaccination rates in high-income countries are — shamefully — seven times higher than in African countries. We need vaccine equity, now.”

“We need pharmaceutical companies to stand in solidarity with developing countries by sharing licenses, know-how and technology so we can all find a way out of this pandemic.        

“In situations where compensation may be warranted, developed countries should explore ways to provide it.

And we must prepare for the next pandemic through common sense investments in monitoring, early detection and rapid response plans in every country — and by strengthening the authority of the World Health Organization.”

Guterres asked participants to the Davos Agenda to act urgently on three issues: “confront the pandemic with equity and fairness;” reform the global financial system so it works for all countries; and “support real climate action in developing countries. Emissions must fall, but they continue to rise.”

“Coal-fired power generation is surging towards a new all-time record,” he said. “Even if all developed countries kept their promises to drastically reduce emissions by 2030 — and all developing countries achieved their Nationally Determined Contributions as written — global emissions would still be too high to keep the 1.5 degree goal within reach. We need a 45 per cent reduction in global emissions this decade”.

President Xi Jinping of China called for cooperation to jointly defeat the pandemic.

“The pandemic is proving a protracted one, resurging with more variants and spreading faster than before. It poses a serious threat to people’s safety and health, and exerts a profound impact on the global economy,” Xi said his government has locked down several cities to stop Omicron from spreading.

“Strong confidence and cooperation represent the only right way to defeat the pandemic. Holding each other back or shifting blame would only cause needless delay in response and distract us from the overall objective.”

Xi said China always delivered on its promises and has sent over 2 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries and international organizations. He said China will provide another one billion doses to African countries, including 600 million doses as donation, and will also donate 150 million doses to ASEAN countries.

On the global economic situation, Xi said, “We should open up, not close off. We should seek integration, not decoupling. This is the way to build an open world economy. We should guide reforms of the global governance system with the principle of fairness and justice, and uphold the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its center. We should make generally acceptable and effective rules for artificial intelligence and digital economy on the basis of full consultation, and create an open, just and non-discriminatory environment for scientific and technological innovation. This is the way to make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial for all, and to fully unleash the vitality of the world economy.”

Xi said the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will open soon. “We are confident that China will present a streamlined, safe and splendid Games to the world. The official motto for Beijing 2022 is ‘Together for a Shared Future’. Indeed, let us join hands with full confidence, and work together for a shared future.”

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-Top risks are climate crisis, growing social divides, heightened cyber risks and an uneven global recovery, as pandemic lingers on

-Global survey of experts finds only 1 in 6 are optimistic and only 1 in 10 believe the global recovery will accelerate

-To resolve these systemic issues, global leaders must adopt a coordinated multistakeholder response, even as room for cooperation narrows

-Read the Global Risks Report 2022 here and find out more about the Global Risks Initiative here. Join the conversation using #risks22  

(Following is a press release from the World Economic Forum)

Geneva, Switzerland, 11 January 2022 – Climate risks dominate global concerns as the world enters the third year of the pandemic. According to the Global Risks Report 2022, while the top long-term risks relate to climate, the top shorter-term global concerns include societal divides, livelihood crises and mental health deterioration.
 
Additionally, most experts believe a global economic recovery will be volatile and uneven over the next three years.
 
Now in its 17th edition, the report encourages leaders to think outside the quarterly reporting cycle and create policies that manage risks and shape the agenda for the coming years. It explores four areas of emerging risk: cybersecurity; competition in space; a disorderly climate transition; and migration pressures, each requiring global coordination for successful management.
 
“Health and economic disruptions are compounding social cleavages. This is creating tensions at a time when collaboration within societies and among the international community will be fundamental to ensure a more even and rapid global recovery. Global leaders must come together and adopt a coordinated multistakeholder approach to tackle unrelenting global challenges and build resilience ahead of the next crisis,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum.
 
Carolina Klint, Risk Management Leader, Continental Europe, Marsh, said: “As companies recover from the pandemic, they are rightly sharpening their focus on organizational resilience and ESG credentials. With cyber threats now growing faster than our ability to eradicate them permanently, it is clear that neither resilience nor governance are possible without credible and sophisticated cyber risk management plans. Similarly, organizations need to start understanding their space risks, particularly the risk to satellites on which we have become increasingly reliant, given the rise in geopolitical ambitions and tensions.”
 
Peter Giger, Group Chief Risk Officer, Zurich Insurance Group, said: “The climate crisis remains the biggest long-term threat facing humanity. Failure to act on climate change could shrink global GDP by one-sixth and the commitments taken at COP26 are still not enough to achieve the 1.5 C goal. It is not too late for governments and businesses to act on the risks they face and to drive an innovative, determined and inclusive transition that protects economies and people.”
 
The report closes with reflections on year two of the COVID-19 pandemic, yielding fresh insights on national-level resilience. The chapter also draws on the World Economic Forum’s communities of risk experts – the Chief Risk Officers Community and Global Future Council on Frontier Risks – to offer practical advice for implementing resilience for organizations.
 
The Global Risks Report 2022 has been developed with the invaluable support of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Advisory Board. It also benefits from ongoing collaboration with its Strategic Partners, Marsh McLennan, SK Group and Zurich Insurance Group, and its academic advisers at the Oxford Martin School (University of Oxford), the National University of Singapore and the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center (University of Pennsylvania)

By J. Tuyet Nguyen

Oslo/New York, December 11 – Dmitry Muratov of Russia and Maria Ressa of the Philippines, who co-share the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, denounced tyranny and governments that rule their countries when they received (December 10) the coveted prize which this year was given to journalists for the first time in 80 years. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said both Muratov and Ressa are awarded the prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

Muratov, who co-founded and edited Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper, holds Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government responsible for the deaths of six of his investigative reporters, including well-known Anna Politkovskaya.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 24 journalists were killed because of their reporting works and 293 others are behind bars worldwide in 2021.

Muratov said in his speech, “But journalism in Russia is going through a dark valley. Over a hundred journalists, media outlets, human rights defenders and NGOs have recently been branded as ‘foreign agents’. In Russia, this means ‘enemies of the people.’ Many of our colleagues have lost their jobs. Some have to leave the country.

Some are deprived of the opportunity to live a normal life for an unknown period of time. Maybe forever… That has happened in our history before.”

“We are journalists, and our mission is clear – to distinguish between facts and fiction. The new generation of professional journalists knows how to work with big data and databases. By using these, we have found out whose airplanes are bringing refugees to the conflict area. The facts speak for themselves. The number of Belarusian flights from the Middle East to Minsk has more than quadrupled this autumn. 6 flights in the period August-November 2020 and 27 in the same period this year. The Belarusian airline company brought 4,500 people to possible crossing of the border this year, and only 600 last year. The same number – 6,000 refugees – came with an Iraqi airline company.

This is how armed provocations and conflicts arise. We journalists have uncovered how it is all organized, our task is accomplished. Now it is up to the politicians.”

International Tribunal Against Torture

Muratov denounced the practice of torture in prisons and during investigation, which he said took place under the Stalin era and is “alive and well in today’s Russia.”

“Abuse, rape, terrible living conditions, ban on visits, ban on calling your mother on her birthday, endless extension of custody. Seriously ill people are locked up and beaten in custody, sick children are held hostage, and they are pressured to plead guilty without any evidence against them.

“Criminal cases in our country are often based on false accusations and political motives. Opposition politician Alexei Navalny is being held in jail based on a false accusation from the CEO of the Russian branch of a big French cosmetics company. The accuser was somehow not summoned to the court or neither pleaded to be an aggrieved party. But Navalny is behind bars. The cosmetics company chose to step aside hoping that the odour from this case will not harm the scent of the company’s products.

“We hear more and more often about torture of convicts and detainees. People are being tortured to the breaking point, to make the prison sentence even more brutal. This is barbaric.

“I am now presenting an initiative of setting up an international tribunal against torture, which will have the task to gather information on torture in different parts of the world and different countries, and to identify the executioners and the authorities involved in such crimes.

Of course, I shall rely first and foremost on investigative journalists around the world.

“Torture must be recognized as the most serious crime against humanity.”

We are the antidote against tyranny.

Maria Ressa and Mark Thompson, a former chief executive of The New York Times Company, bylined an article published in the New York Times under the headline “We are the antidote against tyranny.” The government of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte prevented Ressa from going to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. But courts in Manila overruled the government and allowed her to make the trip.

She said in the article, “I, Maria Ressa, co-founded the digital news site Rappler in Manila in 2012. Our aim has always been to pursue the truth wherever it may lead and to report the facts, not what the powerful want the public to hear. But the Philippines is also a dangerous place to be a reporter: 22 journalists have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power, the latest just this week. At Rappler, relentless political intimidation and harassment are daily realities. In less than two years, the government has filed 10 arrest warrants against me. I’ve had to post bail 10 times just to do my job. Currently I am appealing a conviction and potential six-year jail term for “cyber libel.” I cannot leave the Philippines — even to accept my Nobel Prize — without permission from different courts.”

“The growing intolerance of governments and elites toward a free press across the globe is one major cause of the crisis. Global surveys of censorship, arrests and journalist deaths suggest that the picture has been darkening for years. But Zaffar Abbas, the editor in chief of the independent newspaper Dawn in Pakistan, views Donald Trump’s campaign against “fake news” as a further fateful turn for the worse. Abbas believes that authoritarian regimes and populists see it as a green light to step up their own attacks on journalists. If the leader of the free world could show such open contempt for a free press, why shouldn’t they?”

Ressa and Thompson decided to create and co-chair the International Fund for Public Interest Media to support independent journalism across the world.

“We both know from our different vantage points — Maria on the frontline of the battle for free media in Manila, Mark as a past leader of two of the world’s global news providers, The New York Times and the BBC — what a difference great journalism can make both to the individual lives of readers and viewers and to the civic health of a society. We both know how important secure and sustainable income is if you want to preserve that journalism for today and tomorrow. We both know that the great political and cultural battles that free media faces everywhere can only be won if we first stabilize and future-proof its economics.”

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Rome/New York, November 23 – The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is calling for agri-food systems that can withstand shocks and stresses such as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. It said about 3 billion out of the total world population of 7.8 billion currently cannot afford a healthy diet and another billion would be added to the group if they lose one-third of income due to those shocks.

 “Truly resilient agri-food systems must have a robust capacity to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt and transform in the face of any disruption, with the functional goal of ensuring food security and nutrition for all and decent livelihoods and incomes for agri-food systems’ actors,” the Rome-based UN agency said in its 2021 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report – Making agrifood systems more resilient to shocks and stresses.

 “Such resilience addresses all dimensions of food security, but focuses specifically on stability of access and sustainability, which ensure food security in both the short and the long term. Another dimension of food security – agency – is deeply connected to human rights, including the right to food, and underscores the need for inclusiveness in systems.”

The report defines shocks as” short-term events that have negative effects on a system, people’s well-being, assets, livelihoods, safety and ability to withstand future shocks.”

“The pandemic highlighted both the resilience and the weakness of our agri-food systems,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said at the virtual release of the report.

It defines the agri-food systems as “the web of activities involved in the production of food and non-food agricultural products and their storage, processing, transportation, distribution and consumption – produce 11 billion tonnes of food a year and employ billions of people, directly or indirectly.”

The report said that shocks have immediate impact while stresses are “slow processes that gradually undermine the capacity of systems to cope with change and which render them more vulnerable.”

“Agri-food systems’ components and actors are exposed to shocks and stresses of various types and intensity and, because components are interlinked, disruption in any of them can spread quickly throughout systems. The same shock or stress may have different impacts on different systems’ components and actors. Among producers, shocks are most likely to affect the livelihoods of low-income, small-scale operators; among food consumers, the poorest will be the most affected by rising food prices.”

The report said lockdowns under the pandemic caused labor shortages and exposed the vulnerability of small and medium agri-food enterprises

“The smooth functioning of food supply chains underpins the resilience of national agri-food systems. A food supply chain is composed of interconnected activities performed by various actors – farmers, processors, wholesalers and retailers – who, in turn, draw on lateral chains that supply inputs and logistic services. The capacity of a food supply chain to absorb shocks depends on the resilience of each of its segments. Diverse, redundant and well-connected food supply chains enhance agri-food systems’ resilience by providing multiple pathways for producing, sourcing and distributing food. This resilience is necessary not only for safeguarding and enhancing the livelihoods of farmers and businesses, but also for ensuring the physical availability of food to all.”

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