On the Slopes with Yasir and Oprah: In Davos, the have nots meet the know nots
Corry, John
On the Slopes with Yasir and Oprah In Davos, the have nots meet the know nots BY JOHN CORRY N DAVOS, SWITZERLAND o question but that it was high-minded and serious. The World Economic Forum met...
...And so it went at Davos—here a small disagreement, there a somewhat larger one, occasionally a heartfelt plea to which no one would pay attention...
...As President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa said at a session that attracted three other African presidents, "We must move beyond the concept of Africa as a hopeless continent—and we think we can do that...
...Strictly speaking that wasn't quite true...
...Then Senator Dianne Feinstein THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ March 2001 17 said she was distressed because W. was not enthusiastic about funding international family planning...
...I don't think so," replied Porter, an apostle of competitiveness...
...If "entrepreneur-ship can flourish there," he said, "it can flourish anywhere...
...Obasanjo said jovially that drafting such a plan was Mbeki s idea in the first place...
...This time there would be a new and more comprehensive plan...
...Red tape and bureaucracy took their toll...
...Not to worry, though, said old Washington hand David Gergen...
...Fearful of raggedy and perhaps dangerous demonstrators from all 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ March 2001 over Europe, the Swiss police locked the village down tight with roadblocks and chicken-wire fences...
...While it apparently was never used, when the cops mixed the stuff it left a faint redolence, and you could smell it in downtown Davos...
...A French foreign policy person said she felt "apprehension" because the U.S...
...However erratic his ideas about AIDS were thought to be in the past, he is now considered the model of a new African leader...
...Nonetheless the new administration was a prime topic for discussion...
...Loans have not helped...
...seemed to be separating itself from Europe...
...Mbeki sounded and looked quite statesman-like...
...There were not enough "incentives" for managers, workers or entrepreneurs...
...I'm asking world leaders for money," he said flatly...
...Senegal, he said, has 28,000 villages, needs 14,000 schools, but does not have the money to build them...
...Wade of Senegal was elected only last year, so he is new to the game...
...Panelists at a session entitled "Meeting Great Expectations: Suggestions for the New American President" expressed mild alarm...
...Europe still had His dissent had sent a shaft of light into the murk, and when the panel discussion ended he was surrounded by people from the audience who wanted him to keep talking...
...Also, Senegal has Ph.D.s and other academics out of work because it can't pay their salaries...
...They have led to debt, and "to a blank wall in front of us...
...ell it in downtown Davos...
...At a conference of non-aligned nations in Havana last year, he recalled, Mbeki had asked, "Shouldn't we have a plan—our own plan...
...One panel answered the question whether Europe was emerging from the economic woods by saying the signs were encouraging, but possibly misleading, and no one could tell for sure...
...Dissent was tolerated, but usually muted...
...was out of the economic woods by saying the signs were encouraging, but possibly misleading, and while Europe may be emerging from the woods, no one could tell for sure...
...If you don't count Katherine Harris, the Bush Administration was represented only by Christine Todd Whitman, and she had agreed to come before she joined the cabinet...
...In the past, big plans for Africa had always been made by outsiders, but "their plans were not our plans," Obasanjo said...
...This seemed to leave some of Porters colleagues a trifle miffed, but no matter...
...They also collected cow manure from local farmers for use in their water cannons...
...Toward the close of the discussion, however, the chairman of the panel, who was also the chairman of Deutsche Telekom, put the question to Harvard economist Michael Porter directly: "Are we out of the woods...
...never buy that, and so it adopted a measured optimism...
...Sweden, Porter told one of them, has changed its culture...
...Outside the Forum, meanwhile, everything was serene...
...Wade called on the United Nations to convene a world summit, not with technocrats or bureaucrats, but with the worlds political leaders...
...Porter also said, tactfully but firmly, that Europe still displayed "a certain ambivalence about the capitalist system...
...Where else could they get to meet both Yasir Arafat and Oprah Winfrey...
...Africa...
...Taxes were too high, the culture inhibited risk...
...The majority on one panel of experts answered the question of whether Europe its problems...
...In contrast to Americans, he hinted, many Europeans were happy to stay on the dole...
...Obviously the Forum could "Don't worry, I left a paper trail...
...And as Bill Gates said, while explaining why he was announcing his $100 million gift for AIDS research in Davos and not in Seattle, "the leaders of business, governments, organizations, the press—they're all here...
...Mbeki and the other African presidents—Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania—said they would present a comprehensive, unified plan for all Africa...
...President Bush should be given credit for assembling his foreign policy team so quickly...
...Best of all for the 2,300 participants was the chance to mix and mingle...
...A cover story in the Economist last year called it the "Hopeless Continent," and said its problems were intractable...
...Rather than going into statesman mode, he made an impassioned speech...
...Africa, he said, needed help...
...Most of the panel discussions were like that: a worry here, a worry there, and then some balm to soothe things...
...The World Economic Forum met in this Alpine village to "bridge the divides" between the "haves" and "have nots," the "knows" and "know nots," and promote "sustainable development...
...Productivity growth was slow, job creation minimal...
Vol. 34 • March 2001 • No. 2
