The proposals in focus at the WEF Redesign Summit talks Sunday, 30 May 2010 03:02

TRACK 1: ECONOMIC COOPERATION

Rebuild In Depth: Financial Stability

• The Council on Global Investment Flows, in consultation with the Council on Systemic Financial Risk, has proposed the creation of a global systemic financial risk watchdog with the necessary authority to sound and compel a response to alarm bells, while respecting the regulatory purview of national authorities and building on the institutional framework that has been constructed in the wake of the financial crisis.

•    The Financial Services Industry Partner Rethinking Risk Management Project has proposed a new publicprivate financial risk information repository that would improve the aggregation of systemically relevant data across the global financial system for the benefit of regulator

Rebuild In Depth: Employment and Migration

The Council on Employment & Social Protection has proposed a major expansion of the capacity of the International Labour Organization and multilateral development banks to help developing countries strengthen domestic institutions relevant to the investment climate, employment generation and wage progress. It has also proposed introducing employment and living standards-related trends and policies as an explicit parameter of analysis and discussion in macroeconomic policy cooperation exercises, including the Mutual Assessment Process linked to the G20’s Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth.

•    The Council on the Skills Gap, in consultation with the Councils on Migration and Talent & Diversity, has proposed a new, structured public-private process to identify and encourage the replication of model national labour migration policies.

Rebuild In Depth: International Monetary System

• The Council on the International Monetary System has made several proposals, including a significant strengthening of the global financial safety net through reforms of the International Monetary Fund’s Articles of Agreement that would authorise the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) at the request of the Managing Director to issue Special Drawing Rights for the provision of emergency liquidity in times of financial distress.

Rebuild In Depth: International Trading System

• The Council on Trade has proposed the establishment of a World Trade Organization protocol on plurilateral trade agreements and a review of regional free trade and preference agreements to strengthen guidelines ensuring their consistency with the long-term vitality of the multilateral trading system.

• The Council on Sustainable Energy has proposed the creation of a sectoral free trade arrangement for sustainable energy products and services that would eliminate tariffs and harmonise standards as well as begin to discipline domestic fossil fuel subsidies.

Redesign Principles: Global Growth

•    The Council on Benchmarking Progress in Society has proposed an international initiative to strengthen the quality and broaden the application of benchmarking metrics and other evidence-based policy-making tools as a means of improving the demand for and accountability of performance against economic reform objectives.

TRACK 2: DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION

Rebuild In Depth: Health

• The Health Cluster Rapporteurs and Council on Global Healthcare Systems & Cooperation have put forward a set of proposals to strengthen global health governance, including an annual multi-actor Global Health Summit adjacent to the World Health Organization’s intergovernmental World Health Assembly; a Partnership for Health Risk Accountability and Health Data Charter to create a more rigorous analytical foundation for such planning; a strengthening of the normative and coordinating role of the WHO and clearer division of labour among health agencies; and coalitions on specific challenges, including on the malnutrition of under-two children, chronic diseases, and health workforce shortages.

•     The Councils on Nutrition and Food Security have proposed the creation of a Global Food, Agriculture and Nutrition Redesign Initiative to provide an actionoriented strategy and set of high profile partnerships to increase the diet quality of the poor and particularly the nutritional status of children under the age of two.

•    The Council on Population Growth has proposed sharpening the mandate and strengthening the capacity of the United Nations Population Fund so that it can more effectively lead and coordinate international efforts related to population growth.

Redesign Principles: Development Cooperation

•     The Council on Poverty & Development Finance has proposed new means of improving dialogue and cooperation among the overlapping public, private and civil society networks of aid funders and providers, including the creation of a Global Aid Partnership for Innovation that would promote a yearly marketplace for the funding and systematic evaluation of innovative approaches to development assistance.

Rebuild In Depth: Education and Safety Nets

•     The Council on Education Systems has proposed to reformulate the governance and supporting institutional architecture of the Education for All effort through a multistakeholder review of its governance, financing and institutional capacity, including a call to action to G20 leaders to engage education, development and finance ministries in the review, as well as a first set of targeted initiatives in the areas of teacher training, North-South university cooperation, and informal learning.

•     The Council on Employment & Social Protection has proposed a major expansion of the capacity of the International Labour Organization and multilateral development banks to help developing countries create or strengthen basic retirement, health and unemployment insurance systems.

Rebuild In Depth: Regional Strategies

•     The Industry Partner Water Initiative and the Council on Water Security have proposed a new international multistakeholder platform to help water-stressed countries and regions transform the management of their water resources, supported by an unparalleled network of public, civil society and private expertise.

•     The Council on Humanitarian Assistance has proposed the creation of a new humanitarian business model that emphasises tri-sector national and regional partnerships to pre-emptively reduce disaster-related risks and strengthen disaster response capabilities.

Rebuild In Depth: Legal and Regulatory Environment

•     The Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) has proposed the creation of a new global multistakeholder partnership to scale the “supply side” (i.e., business) commitment to a zero tolerance policy with respect to bribery as a complement to official “demand side” efforts by governments to strengthen policy in this respect.

•     The Council on Fragile States has proposed creation of a dual-oversight agency where responsibility is shared between state authorities and external funders in order to meet the urgent needs of the population in fragile states through the delivery of essential social and economic services, while building sustainable and accountable systems of public authority.

•     The YGL Global Responsibility Licensing Task Force and Council on the Intellectual Property System have proposed a new initiative to expand access to intellectual property relevant to poverty alleviation and humanitarian assistance while preserving protection for commercial uses.

•     The Council on Philanthropy & Social Investing has proposed the creation of a Social Competitiveness Index, which would benchmark countries according to the effectiveness of their legal, fiscal and cultural environment with respect to the promotion of social innovation – e.g., social enterprise, corporate social responsibility, philanthropy and social investment.

TRACK 3: SUSTAINABILITY COOPERATION

Redesign Principles: Environmental Governance

•     Various proposals of rapporteurs and Councils

Rebuild In Depth: Climate Finance

•     The Industry Partner Low-Carbon Prosperity Task Force has proposed the creation of regional, public-private climate investment funds that leverage large-scale private institutional capital flows into low-carbon energy systems in developing countries through the scaled application of the public finance and risk mitigation tools of development finance institutions.

•     The Industry Partner Low-Carbon Prosperity Task Force has also proposed the creation of international publicprivate portfolios of up to 25 carbon capture and sequestration and 10 large-scale integrated smart grid demonstration projects across different regulatory regimes to accelerate the development and commercial readiness of these promising technologies.

Rebuild In Depth: Energy Governance

•     The Council on Energy Security has proposed the creation of a new intergovernmental energy security forum encompassing producing and consuming nations and providing a platform for the identification of areas of potential cooperation on a wide range of energy challenges.

•     The Industry Partner Low-Carbon Prosperity Task Force has proposed a global platform for intra-industry cooperation on energy efficiency via the addition of a private sector dimension to the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC), potentially leading to a set of globally-accepted minimum energy efficiency standards on a limited but critical range of energy intensive industrial and consumer goods.

Rebuild In Depth: Oceans

• The Council on Ocean Governance and the YGL Task Force on Oceans have proposed a significant expansion of Marine Protected Areas, including Large Ocean Reserves, as well as a formal review of the adequacy of the Law of the Sea Treaty and Fish Stocks Agreement in view of the ongoing degradation of major fisheries around the world. They also propose new mechanisms to strengthen monitoring and enforcement and an Ocean Health Index to strengthen the information available for setting priorities and tracking progress with respect to the protection of marine life.

Rebuild In Depth: Low-Carbon Growth in Developing Countries

•     The Industry Partner Low-Carbon Prosperity Task Force has proposed measures to support the low-carbon growth of developing countries, including through the creation of a Consultative Group for International Energy Research and a process to ready an operational framework for large-scale avoided deforestation and land use change projects and programmes.

TRACK 4: SECURITY COOPERATION

Rebuild In Depth: Global Risks

•     The Council on Catastrophic Risks has proposed a highlevel, inclusive dialogue including business, political and civil society leaders to develop better institutions and networks to support global risk management.

•     The Council on the Future of the Internet has proposed new, self-associating ways of mobilizing international cooperation to strengthen the resilience of the World Wide Web.

Rebuild In Depth: Human Rights and Protection

•     The Council on Human Rights & Protection has proposed a series of steps to strengthen particularly the non-military institutional capacity required for the effective prevention of mass atrocities under the United Nations Responsibility to Protect framework.

Redesign Principles: Global Institutional Framework

•     Various proposals of rapporteurs and Councils

Rebuild In Depth: Legitimacy and International Institutions

•    The YGL Civic Eyes Task Force has proposed a new organisation to strengthen domestic capacity to replicate mass citizen participation in the monitoring and reporting of election irregularities through crowdsourcing technologies.

•     The Council on the Future of Government has proposed a general mobilisation of information and communications technology tools to strengthen democratic participation at all levels of government in the form of a Global Citizen Engagement Initiative.

Rebuild In Depth: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

•     The Council on Terrorism & Weapons of Mass Destruction has proposed the creation of a Global Alliance Against Nuclear Terrorism composed of states that commit to secure all nuclear weapons and materials to a “gold standard” – beyond the reach of terrorists or thieves – by embedding principles of “assured nuclear security” and “nuclear accountability”.

•     The Council on Energy Security has proposed the creation of a global public-private partnership to manage the civilian nuclear fuel cycle as a means of reducing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation as additional countries engage in nuclear power generation.

VALUES

Redesign Principles: Values

•     The Councils on the Future of Entertainment and Marketing & Branding have proposed to galvanize a global community of marketing, media, entertainment, and technology industries, modelled on Ad Councils that already exist in the USA and a few other nations, to expand public education and advocacy in support of initiatives and reforms that advance progress on shared, long-term objectives in the global public interest.

• The YGL Business Oath Task Force has proposed a Global Business Oath, which is intended to be a modern-day Hippocratic Oath for business that spells out a commitment to doing no harm through the practice of management. It commits managers and graduates of business schools throughout the world to a common code of ethics and to raise their awareness of ethical values such as integrity, honesty, reliability and responsibility. The project is developing a series of practices that help Oath takers live the Oath on an ongoing, lifelong basis.

• The Council on Faith has proposed the establishment of a Moral Economy Dialogue with three tracks: with leaders in business government and society using the World Economic Forum as a platform; at the grass roots within faith communities; and at the 2012 G20 Leaders meeting involving senior government, business, civil society and faith leaders.

• The Council on Social Entrepreneurship has proposed the creation of a formal body, the Consultative Group for Research to Advance Social Entrepreneurship (CGRASE), which would be analogous to the role the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) plays in the microfinance sector. It would have the specific mission of conducting research and promoting policies that maximise the benefits of social entrepreneurship to society.