EL PAÍS to offer special Davos coverage

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, held in the Swiss town of Davos since 1971, brings together the world’s political, business and intellectual elite to discuss the present and future of the economy. This year, EL PAÍS will be offering reports and analysis from the Swiss town, plus a daily hour-long program in collaboration with Facebook, the world’s largest social network, which has recently launched a global project to support quality journalism and combat the spread of news hoaxes.

Over the past few decades the Davos forum has provided ideas and agreements that have transformed the world, under the coordination of its founder, the German economist Klaus Schwab. Attendees this year include leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping; the British Prime Minister, Theresa May; the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos; the US vice president, Joe Biden, and the US businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates, among many others. EL PAÍS will be covering the meetings and conferences on its website and in its print edition. The newspaper’s international financial correspondent, Alicia González, will be giving daily updates, complete with anecdotes and news from the Forum.

In addition, the newspaper’s deputy editor David Alandete will anchor an hour-long TV program to be broadcast on Facebook and the website of EL PAÍS from Tuesday January 17 to Friday January 20 at 2pm local time, from Davos – the same time as in peninsular Spain. Alandete will also be interviewing politicians and businessmen live on the EL PAÍS Facebook page. Since last summer, EL PAÍS has developed its own video programming on Facebook with analysis from its experts and correspondents and with interviews with leading figures such as the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa and the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Luis Alberto Moreno.

The theme of this year's meeting in Davos is Responsible and Responsive Leadership, because according to Schwab, “A new model of responsive and responsible leadership is needed to allow us to address the challenges the world faces, from security to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with long-term, action-oriented thinking and solidarity on a national and global level”.

The Forum has created a network of exceptionally talented young people, from places as diverse as Caracas or Beijing, dubbed global shapers, 50 of whom will be participate in the the Forum. They’ll be sharing with EL PAÍS their experiences and ideas on the special broadcasts throughout the Forum.

An entire village gets involved

The 11,000 Davos residents will be welcoming over 2,500 participants, 3,000 soldiers, 1,500 police and an undetermined number of bodyguards, advisers and temporary workers, all hired to attend to visitors.

What’s more, this is a crucial year for the White House, with the event ending on the last day of Barack Obama’s mandate and the first day of Donald Trump’s presidency. It will also be the first meeting attended by a Chinese head of state, accompanied by a delegation of Chinese businessmen, such as Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. The Forum, based in Geneva, is an international non-profit organization employing around 500 people.

More information here.