WEF

The Davos Agenda 2022 brings together world leaders to address the state of the world

Kirsten Salyer & Beatrice Di Caro

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.

The week long virtual event, taking place on the World Economic Forum website and social media channels 17-21 January 2022, will feature heads of state and government, CEOs and other leaders. They will discuss the critical challenges facing the world today and present their ideas on how to address them.

The event 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 through humanitarian investing, bridge the vaccine manufacturing gap and use data solutions to prepare for the next pandemic.

“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 Davos Agenda 2022 is the starting point for the dialogue needed for global cooperation in 2022.”


Davos Agenda 2022 participants

World leaders delivering “State of the World” Special Addresses will include:

  • Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
  • Kishida Fumio, Prime Minister of Japan
  • António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations
  • Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
  • Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia
  • Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia
  • Naftali Bennett, Prime Minister of Israel
  • Janet L. Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States
  • Yemi Osinbajo, Vice-President of Nigeria.

The programme will also feature speakers including:

  • Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO)
  • Fatih Birol, Executive Director, International Energy Agency
  • José Pedro Castillo Terrones, President of Peru
  • Ivan Duque, President of Colombia
  • Anthony S. Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health of the United States of America
  • Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment of Egypt
  • Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
  • Alejandro Giammattei, President of Guatemala
  • Al Gore, Vice-President of the United States (1993-2001) and Chairman and Co-Founder, Generation Investment Management
  • Paulo Guedes, Minister of Economy of Brazil
  • Paula Ingabire, Minister of Information Communication Technology and Innovation of Rwanda
  • Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda
  • John F. Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States of America
  • Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor of the Bank of Japan
  • Christine Lagarde,President, European Central Bank
  • Guillermo Lasso, President of Ecuador
  • Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General, World Trade Organization (WTO)
  • Abdulaziz Bin Salman Bin AbdulazizAl Saud, Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia
  • Nicolas Schmit, Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, European Commission
  • François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Central Bank of France
  • Sarah bint Yousif Al-Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology, Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates.

Davos Agenda 2022 sessions and launches

Conversations will focus on critical collective challenges across several key areas:

Climate action

Climate action failure, extreme weather and biodiversity loss are ranked the top three most-severe risks for the world over the next decade, according to the Forum’s Global Risks Report 2022, published 11 January 2022.


Top 10 Global Risks by Severity 2022

Climate-related risks top the list of global risks by severity.
Image: World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2022
For a brief moment, a drop in emissions in 2020 proved climate action is possible – and the collective response to COVID-19 is evidence that, if we work together, it’s not too late to save the planet. This requires reaching net zero, achieving the energy transition, committing to circular economies and sustainable consumption and – above all – putting climate and nature at the heart of recovery plans.


Global cooperation

The recent years have seen deepened political and social divides as well as a heightened mistrust of institutions and the spread of misinformation and disinformation. We must renew our commitment to global cooperation and shared prosperity – from vaccine equity to wherever the new era of global space exploration may take us.

At the same time, the shocks of COVID-19 accelerated the digital transformation of business and society ­– and innovations in vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and contact tracing have helped us to address the pandemic’s worst impacts. Looking ahead, technology holds the keys to solving the biggest challenges ahead of us: decarbonizing energydiagnosing and treating diseasesecuring our food supply and helping small businesses and entrepreneurs everywhere survive and thrive.

But this rapid digital transformation is not without risk, as we’ve seen cybercrime spike and digital divides widen in the past two years, too. We must work together to balance innovation and responsibility to ensure the digital transformation is driving growth and innovation, and not creating harm.

The Forum will release the Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2022 report on 18 January.

What to watch:

How to follow the Davos Agenda 2022

The event will be livestreamed across the Forum’s website and social media channels. All content will be shared using the official event hashtag #DavosAgenda.

Make sure to follow us on all of our platforms to stay up to date on key quotes, moments and news from the event:

Previously posted at :