Introduction

For more than 40 years, the World Economic Forum has provided an unrivalled independent platform for convening the most relevant actors from all sectors – business, government and civil society – in a high-level, informal environment of trust to discuss, learn, debate and take action on today’s pressing challenges. Based on its integrated and interactive approach, Forum meetings are not stand-alone events in the traditional conference sense. Rather, they are much more based on an ongoing concept of processes, task forces, and preparatory activities and follow-up actions. 

The Annual Meeting in Davos remains the foremost meeting to determine global, regional and industry agendas at the beginning of each year. The Annual Meeting of the New Champions serves as the world’s foremost meeting devoted to innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and technology of the “new economy”, and the Summit on the Global Agenda is the foremost global “expert” Summit to define global, regional and industry transformation processes. 

To address the challenges of global economic turmoil, we must continue to promote regional cooperation and integration – and the key to this is connectivity.

 

–  Yingluck Shinawatra,
Prime Minister of the
Kingdom of Thailand

In addition to its Annual Meetings, the Forum also convenes a number of Regional meetings each year, to discuss specific regional challenges within a global context. These events focus on determining the critical actions needed to deal with regional challenges and to improve competitiveness. They provide a neutral environment for business, political and civil society leaders to take a greater role in global governance and secure the prosperity of their countries. Participants engage in discussions on how these global challenges and opportunities affect their regions, and the outcomes feed into the Annual Meetings. 

The World Economic Forum is just an amazing set of ideas, connections and people.

 

– Marissa Mayer,
CEO, Yahoo! Inc.,
USA

In this respect, the Forum’s Annual and Regional meetings are closely interwoven and reinforce each other. Many of the sub-activities integrated in the regional summits are taken up in Davos, and vice versa, thus contributing to a continuous process of interaction at the highest level. 

Forum membership includes an invitation to participate in all regional meetings for the chief executive or chairperson of each Member, including Global Growth Company Members. This important privilege is recognized as the most effective way for senior executives to interact with leaders across regions and to gain new insights from renowned experts into the increasingly complex environment in which they operate.