LONDON (AP) 鈥� More than 60 heads of state and government and hundreds of business leaders are coming to Switzerland to discuss the biggest global challenges during the next week, ranging from Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The likes of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, , EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and many others will descend on the Alpine ski resort town of Davos on Jan. 15-19, organizers said Tuesday.
Attendees have their work cut out for them with two major wars 鈥� the and 鈥� plus problems like , major , a weak global economy and powered by rapidly advancing artificial intelligence in a major election year.
Trust has eroded on peace and security, with global cooperation down since 2016 and plummeting since 2020, forum President Borge Brende said at a briefing.
"In Davos, we will make sure that we bring together the right people to see how can we also end this very challenging world, look at opportunities to cooperate," he said.
Brende noted that there are fears about and that key stakeholders 鈥� including the prime ministers of Qatar, Lebanon and Jordan as well as Herzog 鈥� were coming to Davos to 鈥渓ook how to avoid a further deterioration and also what is next, because we also have to inject some silver linings.鈥�
Zelenskyy will give an address next week during the event, while more than 70 national security advisers from around the world will gather in Davos on Sunday to discuss ways forward on Zelenskyy's peace plan, Brende said. It's the , but Russian officials have never participated.
Major figures 鈥� including U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, , , 鈥� will discuss big ideas in hundreds of public sessions and speeches or in other talks surrounding the event.
There's also more secretive backroom deal-making in the upscale hotels along Davos鈥� Promenade, near the conference center that hosts the gathering.
How much all these discussions will result in big announcements is uncertain. The World Economic Forum's glitzy event has drawn criticism for being a place where high-profile figures talk about big ideas but make little headway on finding solutions to the world's biggest challenges.
It's also been criticized for hosting wealthy executives who sometimes fly in on .
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The Associated Press
