The Great Debate

Is the world any closer to closing the gender gap?

Katharine Herrup

Nov 1, 2011 15:51 EDT

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is out with its 6th annual Global Gender Gap report. The report measures how equitably countries are distributing their resources between women and men — regardless of their level of resources.

“By and large, the trends are positive,” one of the authors of the report Saadia Zahidi, who is the senior director at WEF, told correspondent Reuters Michelle Nichols. “85% of the 135 countries listed have made progress.”

Over the last six years, the gaps in health and education between men and women have been closed by 96% and 93%, respectively. However, the gaps in economic participation and political empowerment are much greater — 59% and 18%, respectively, over the last six years.

“While women are as healthy and educated as men, they’re clearly not being channeled into the economy or decision making structures,” Zahidi said.

Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Ireland are ranked as the top five countries while Saudi Arabia, Mali, Pakistan, Chad and Yemen are at the very bottom.

Why so many Nordic countries at the top? Zahidi says they have a long history of equality between women and men and, additionally, have removed the barriers to economic participation of women by making it possible to combine family and work. But gender equality doesn’t have to be a luxury good. In fact, if poor countries make it a part of their development they can actually grow faster, says Zahidi.

Can the social network of Davos deliver?

– Aron Cramer is the president and CEO of BSR , a global business network and consultancy focused on sustainability. He is also coauthor of the forthcoming book Sustainable Excellence (Rodale 2010). The views expressed are his own. – The 40th World Economic Forum at Davos gets underway this week in a world still groping for direction and solutions to structural changes and economic weakness that plague the global economy. Is it realistic to expect that the 2,500 people at Davos will deliver a truly sustainable economic recovery?

The disappointing outcome at Copenhagen was a powerful example of how risky it is to expect grand, global gatherings to save the world. Does that mean it’s best to keep expectations of Davos in check? Maybe not.

Davos is a place where influential government, business, and civil society leaders gather to create new solutions to vexing problems. It is, in its own elite way, more representative of the 21st century world than the summits that rely on formal treaties. You could say that Davos, with its informal opportunities for connections, is a social networking site in the snow, while Copenhagen, with its formal communiqués, is more like the Congress of Vienna.

In proper web 2.0 fashion, much of the goings-on are user generated, organized by participants outside the official program. And by looking at what’s happening at the “off-piste” meetings and events, it’s easy to see that sustainability is at the core of this 40th Davos.

It is precisely the combination of the official and unofficial agenda at Davos that has the potential to contribute to sustainable prosperity—especially if it can deliver systemic redesign, spark innovation for sustainability, and leverage the power of the network it has assembled.

Indeed, one of the WEF’s core themes this year is system redesign. It’s looking to make progress on its Global Redesign Initiative, an effort to promote governance improvements for inclusive economic growth that is also environmentally sustainable. In addition, the chairs of Davos’ 70 Global Agenda Councils (which includes one I will lead on sustainable consumption) will close the event with recommendations to bring to a summit in Qatar this May. It is then that the outputs of these 70 councils, which range from the future of China to the future of journalism, will be presented formally to a group of governments. The goal is nothing less than “fostering transformational innovation in global governance” to solve the world’s most pressing problems. So we should give the WEF credit for its effort to look at global problems from a systemic perspective.

Innovation for sustainability is also on the agenda. I’ll be leading a discussion on “Redirecting Marketing,” in which leaders from fields such as marketing and consumer products will debate the fundamental premise of how we communicate about and sell products. Today, innovation is about much more than just new kinds of products, and we’ll consider whether marketing is mired in a “Mad Men” world, or whether there’s an opportunity to inspire consumers to make more sustainable choices.

Business must take the lead on carbon management

Léo Apotheker is CEO of SAP. The views expressed are his own.

Most people who followed the Copenhagen climate talks in December will have been disappointed.

While the agreement brokered by the group of countries that included the United States, Brazil, China, India and South Africa and ratified by most of the attending countries is being touted as a success of sorts, it fell far short of the expectations that had built up, and achieved very little in concrete terms.

Now with the World Economic Forum approaching, the issue of climate change and sustainability will once again dominate discussions among the business and political leaders who attend the annual gathering in Davos.

Ever since the 1968 publication in Science of Garrett Hardin’s article “The Tragedy of the Commons,” it has been regarded as virtually an article of faith that only strong national and international regulators can be trusted with the proper management of public resources.

A clear regulatory framework is necessary for businesses to act in competitive environments and maybe at least some pieces of such a framework will be provided in the future. But it was not provided at Copenhagen.

Collaboration is the key to economic growth

– Aron Cramer is president and CEO of BSR, a global business network and consultancy focused on sustainability. The views expressed are his own. —

As the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” meeting in Dalian, China, gets underway, it is a bit chilling to think back to how the financial crisis was unfolding in real time during last year’s event.

As the 1,000 leaders gathering for this year’s event spend three days debating how to restore economic growth and social stability, the need to focus on a long-term transition to a more sustainable economy is clearer than ever.

Doing this will require unprecedented cooperation among businesses and consumers. The companies that build new business models and innovative products and services will win in the reset world, and shape an economy that avoids disruptions like the one that erupted last fall.

At this year’s meeting, I am chairing two workshops, where we will explore how to build new models of production and consumption that hold the potential to create not only a return to growth, but to a more sustainable model of growth.

Arising from an interlocking set of crises, three immense challenges stand before us. We must:

1. Return to economic growth while deleveraging massive debt. 2. Transition to a low-carbon economy that uses natural resources more efficiently. 3. Create new social contracts both inside and between nations.

from James Saft:

Save capitalism from the banks – Nassim Taleb

James Saft

Jan 30, 2009 11:31 EST

Nassim Nicholas Taleb,  the author of  "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable", has a simple proposal to as he puts it, "save capitalism and free markets from the banks."

Nationalise the banks, limit the rewards to those who work in what he calls the "utility" part of the system and have a completely uninsured second leg that can take all the risks it wants and lose its shirt, he said in an interview in Davos at the World Economic Forum.

"They rigged the game. We pay them for their profits, there is no clawback so their incentive is to hide the risk they are taking."

"Which is why eventually as someone who loves free markets,  a total nationalisation of the part of the business that requires insurance and does clearing and payments needs to happen."

"I am angry with U.S. policy. What we had is exactly the opposite of socialism, they got TARP to pay their bonuses and to take more risk."

He describes his plan as Capitalism 2.0. It would have a barbell structure, with the insured utility-like part on one end and the free market bit with privatized risk on the other.

Building a three-legged stool

Reuters Staff

Jan 28, 2009 09:44 EST

-  Lawrence Bloom is deputy chairman of Noble Cities and chairman of the World Economic Forum, Global Agenda Council on Urban Management. His views are his own –

The chaos generated by the meltdown of the global economic system provides environmentalists and human rights advocates with utopian opportunities to promote a new economic model, which will not only help sustain life on our planet, but actually increase its quality for many. As world leaders search for creative solutions to restore global equilibrium, the opportunity for recognising the importance of both human and environmental capital has perhaps never been so possible or achievable. Recognising all three types of capital: financial, environmental and human, will help us to build the equivalent of a balanced three-legged stool . Hopefully, this stool will be more stable than the current one-legged model of financial capital. Last week the United Nations Environment Program recommended the business world use the global downturn to press ahead with green technologies that will save firms money and help save the planet. It also recommended using micro-finance loans to help developing countries provide sustainable solutions in such places as Bangladesh where small loans have allowed women entrepreneurs to install solar panels and bring electricity to 100,000 homes. Society has been operating on the belief that if the engines of capitalism are powered to churn constantly, wealth will prevail and all of human society will benefit. But this system has served to create great income disparities by generating incredible wealth and incredible poverty, and has been the main driver in causing catastrophic environmental damage. The unregulated, trickle-down financial policy is necessary to generate positive GDP figures, but traditionally these data do not include the cost of rainforest or biodiversity loss. Thanks to the United Nations Green Economy Initiative, and the work being undertaken by Pavan Sukhdev and his colleagues who are engaged in the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project, we can now put GDP-like values on these losses. As a result, we are beginning to recognise that the credit crunch in the financial markets is a minnow in comparison to the credit crunch in our environment and biodiversity systems. It appears that we have been “borrowing” $2.5 trillion every year for the last 25 years without any significant compensating payback. Over time, we may acquire the wisdom to realise that what traditional economics considers “externalities”, as if they were irrelevant, are closer to our survival needs than the creation of economic wealth. The 90 pence we pay for a litre of petrol is divided between government tax and profit for the oil company, but who picks up the tab for the damage that is done by burning the fuel in the atmosphere? We privatise profit and we socialise loss. We need to start valuing people first, and then we will collectively begin to operate on the principle that the environment is not just another word for commodity market, but that it supports life. Valuing human capital means acknowledging that each person on this planet is entitled to fresh water, nutritious food, proper shelter, healthcare, education, justice and access to capital. This way we can release the creative potential of all of humanity. Only when we are clear on these values can we create a financial system that serves it. The current financial credit drivers are akin to the booster rockets on a space craft. In the same way as the boosters blast the craft free of the Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational pull, so the current financial system has created wealth, education and freedom for 1.5 billion people. But for many – the remaining 4.5 billion – the cost has been very great and to our ecosystems it has been disastrous. The skill in a space shot is knowing when to blow the explosive bolts, releasing the boosters and continuing the mission with the second stage only. Our skill will be in jettisoning our current economic model and designing a new and more inclusive “second stage”. What we should be talking about now at a strategic level is urgently restructuring our monetary system into a non-debt, or minimal-based debt structure using Sharia-type finance and complementary currencies with government spending money directly into circulation. In whichever way we choose as a society to tackle the global financial crisis, we must create a system that protects and nurtures all of humanity and the environment before it is too late. An inspirational quote attributed to a North American First Nations Chief Seattle states: “We are all connected like the blood that unites one family. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. Man did not create the web of life, but he is part of it, whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” These words written more than one hundred years ago speak directly to us today. Will we have the intelligence to listen?