Representatives from governments, NGOs, financial institutions, and private companies from across the world met in Davos last week to discuss the most pressing issues of our time. The theme for this year was ‘cooperation in a fragmented world’; a fitting topic considering that just a cursory glance at the news is necessary to see the world’s widening fault lines. War in Europe, recessions taking hold around the world, the impact of catastrophic climate change, geopolitical tensions in the South China Seas, and a pandemic of misinformation. If the world is to effectively meet the systemic challenges posed by this era of ‘permacrisis’, cooperation must be the defining principle of our time.
The coming together of key stakeholders at Davos is a good start – but, in order to truly enact systemic change, the unparalleled influence of those who were in attendance must be leveraged beyond the World Economic Forum. Time is increasingly running out, and with public trust in institutions at an all-time low, it is imperative that the public and private spheres work together and take the lead in finding solutions. While it was encouraging to see that some progress was driven forward, notably on climate change and Ukraine, much work is left to be done. To truly build consensus-driven solutions in the shadow of division, the concept of citizenship must be re-evaluated to suit a fundamentally interconnected world. We need to talk seriously about global citizenship.
Global citizenship explicitly recognizes cooperation and interdependency as essential to the creation of a safer, fairer, and more sustainable world for all. As so many of the problems facing humanity ignore borders and nationalities, a conception of the world based on borders is powerless to address them. We cannot afford to take an isolationist approach or ignore the burdens of others. Instead, we must embrace a vision of a new, frictionless community of peoples; a vision of a world not defined by lines on a map but by the limitless potential of human partnership.
Take the issue of human security and refugees. When wielded effectively, passports can be powerful tools of liberation. They enable people to broaden their horizons and can provide them access to the opportunities offered only by global mobility. However, for far too many people, passports effectively act as a jailor. Many are held back from a world of possibility simply due to their place of birth. Whether it is ordinary Russians opposed to the Putin regime, or else Iranian rights activists, a monolithic approach to border regimes has consigned countless people to a world of limited horizons and stifled opportunity.
Liberalizing visa and border arrangements is not just a pathway to ameliorating refugee crises; it is also a catalyst for innovation. The introduction of the Schengen Area removed all border checks and instituted a common visa policy between all nations party to the agreement. This is not just a boon for trade, but a functioning mechanism of the acknowledged common security, innovation, and cooperation interests of the countries within Schengen. It has been one of the core reasons behind the success of the European Union as a project and much can be learnt from its example.
Of course, such significant change cannot be implemented in a single stroke. More ambitious relationships on border and visa arrangements must first be pushed for, with a view to creating the trust necessary for more practical agreements between nations. Regional agreements would be a good start and a vital move towards taking the heat out of geopolitical tensions. Nations need not immediately go as far as Schengen, but an acknowledgment of the need to formalize elements of more liberal border policies would be a good start. There were movements in this direction at Davos, with alarm expressed at the trend toward protectionist trade policy amongst the major economies of the world. But we must go further if we are to avoid a backslide towards the nationalist and hawkish approach to international relations that characterized the cold war.
Now that Davos has concluded, it cannot be business as usual. We are running out of chances to piece our fragmented world back together and meaningfully address the dilemmas we face. Confidence in the future can be restored, but business and political leaders must be open to meeting extraordinary circumstances with extraordinary action.
