Looking beyond Davos 2008

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Like many others, I was in Davos last week. Over its 38 years, the World Economic Forum has grown from a minuscule group to a gigantic organ. It is not easy to manage and engage scores of prime ministers, presidents, ministers, CEOs, policymakers and others in a meaningful way. Apart from over 100 panel discussions, veteran Davos hands know that its real value is outside these meeting rooms—in corridors and receptions, and the informal atmosphere which fosters new associations and renews old bonds. Only those who are adept at this art of networking, nexus-forging and reaching out to new people and disciplines can benefit from the Davos opportunity.

While registering for the conference, Martin Wolf of Financial Times enquired about the Indian delegation, promptly adding that the phase of marketing India was over, and the world had generally accepted its new position as a significant economic power. However, India’s problems and challenges are far from over. In an interdependent world, we need to make our presence felt and periodically reiterate that we continue to perform well on growth, poverty reduction and human development indices, as well as positively contribute to contemporary concerns on climate change and security of energy, food and water. The sentiment expressed by Larry Summers in a private dinner hosted by me that P Chidambaram represents India’s most acceptable reforms face is widely shared.

The session on “world economic brainstorming”, which had many economic heavyweights, clearly recognised that the current economic turmoil was an outcome of regulatory failures, systemic underpricing of risks, too much off-balancesheet exposure and inadequate coordination among supervisory entities. Gordon Brown reiterated the need to reform global institutions—IMF, World Bank and United Nations—to address contemporary challenges of managing new power equations, terrorism, peace-keeping, global pandemics, energy security, food distress and climate change.