The Forum’s network response to COVID-19

Using a multistakeholder approach, the Forum and its partners through its COVID Action Platform have provided countless solutions to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, protecting lives and livelihoods.

More than a year after COVID-19 drastically altered the state of the world, today (Monday 25 January) The Davos Agenda, the first event of 2021 focused on rebuilding trust and driving a robust recovery worldwide, will kick off with a look back on how far we have come since the start of the pandemic.

Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis and Boosting Vaccine Confidence are the first two agenda-setting sessions to lead the programme.

Throughout 2020, along with launching its COVID Action Platform, the Forum and its Partners launched more than 40 initiatives in response to the pandemic.

The work continues. As one example, the COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs is supporting 90,000 social entrepreneurs, with an impact on 1.4 billion people, working to serve the needs of excluded, marginalized and vulnerable groups in more than 190 countries.

In partnership with the World Health Organization, the Africa CDC, Ipsos, Resolve to Save Lives and a consortium of partners from the public and private sectors, the Partnership for Evidence-Based Response to COVID-19 continues to collect social, economic, epidemiological, population movement and security data from 20 African Union Member States to produce country-level recommendations to help determine the effectiveness of public health and social measures for COVID-19.

Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, more than 96 million cases have been recorded worldwide, with more than two million deaths reported.

As reported by the Forum in early 2020, the world’s largest health and pharmaceutical companies began collaborating at incredible speed with governments and international organizations to produce effective treatments, tests and vaccines against COVID-19. The first announcement of the development of a vaccine for the novel coronavirus was made during the 2020 Annual Meeting in Davos, and work has continued at an unprecedented pace.

At the time of publishing, the WHO reports more than 39 million doses of vaccine have now been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries. Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income country. Not 25 million; not 25 thousand; but just 25.

New forms of collaboration are now required throughout companies and industries to ensure vaccines reach all of countries of the world – rich and poor alike.

The Forum and its platforms’ multistakeholder response to COVID-19 has involved civil society, government and business coordinating for the greater good.

The Forum is also supporting global partnerships responding to the pandemic. The Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator is a worldwide collaboration designed to accelerate the development and production of, and equitable access to, COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. It is the only instrument of its kind with principles of universal access and equity at its core. The Forum supports the ACT-Accelerator as one of only four non-state members of the Facilitation Council (governing body) together with governments and global partners.

Building on more than two decades of partnership since their launch at the 2000 and 2017 Annual Meetings respectively, the Forum supports GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemics Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI), and the COVAX initiative to procure and deliver doses of a safe, effective and approved vaccine around the world – equitably and efficiently. Towards this goal, in December, 18 chief executives from the shipping, airlines and logistics industries, along with UNICEF and the president of the World Economic Forum, signed a charter supporting inclusive global vaccine distribution.

The Forum’s Mobility Platform, in collaboration with the Commons Project Foundation, has launched the Common Trust Network – a project aiming to help roll out a “digital passport” that shows whether a person has been tested or vaccinated in compliance with prevailing border-crossing regulations as defined by governments, to help open up international travel.

Along with public and private stakeholders, the Network will empower individuals by providing digital access to their health information, make it easier for people to understand and comply with each destination’s requirements, and ensure that only verifiable lab results and vaccination records from trusted sources are presented for the purposes of cross-border travel and commerce.

Partners are welcome to join the Forum’s Centre for Health and Healthcare helping create further solutions to the global pandemic.

The Forum is also developing knowledge tools, including our COVID-19 Transformation Map, which enables organizations to get the latest insights on the coronavirus and its effects on global health, the economy and more.