The corporate social conscience will soon be on full display in Davos, Switzerland, where global leaders from business, government, and civil society will assemble on January 21 for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be committed to public-private partnerships that address the world’s most urgent challenges: climate change, poverty, chronic disease, illiteracy, plastic waste in the oceans, and much more. Unfortunately, after the initial splashy public announcement, most of these sincere and well-intentioned global partnerships are almost certain to quietly fail.
How Global Leaders Should Think About Solving Our Biggest Problems
Looking ahead to Davos.
January 16, 2020
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Summary.
The corporate social conscience will soon be on full display in Davos, Switzerland, where global leaders from business, government, and civil society will assemble on January 21 for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be committed to public-private partnerships that address the world’s most urgent challenges: climate change, poverty, chronic disease, illiteracy, plastic waste in the oceans, and much more. Unfortunately, after the initial splashy public announcement, most of these sincere and well-intentioned global partnerships are almost certain to quietly fail. The only way to avoid this fate is for a company to have a clear strategy about when, where, and how to develop highly targeted coalitions that advance progress on the specific issues and in the particular regions that connect most closely to their business. Translation: Local solutions are the essential to tackling global problems.