Surprising, to say the least, to read that World Economic Forum attendees are participating in a “simulation of what it is like live in a refugee camp facing rebel attack” according to Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times.
There is not much in common.
Of course, it is easy to criticize from a distance, and not being there personally may cloud my impressions. Perhaps the effort to sensitize the Davos attendees is laudable.
But with the resources available to the Davos glitterati, actual humanitarian visits to genuine refugee camps would be more authentic, and certainly from a public relations point of view would reflect less of Davos’s ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ reputation (deserved or not). Since the most precious resource to many of these attendees is time, this ‘role-play exercise’ simply leads to the obvious conclusion that it is more ‘time-effective’ to simulate this experience in the Swiss Alps than to make it a real priority.
Craig Forman's Blog 