Europe’s positioning in the emerging order

Was listening to a rather interesting debate at Davos this year on Europe's position in the emerging world order. I personally find this line of argument that Europe in a steady period of decline rather tiresome- after all, if every country in the regional vicinity is clamouring to join the EU, come on, it cannot be that bad… However, what is rather important is for Europe to think about its relative positioning, given that the world is moving away from a Trans-atlantic centricity to a multi-polar world, each interest group's ability to influence global agenda will be determined by its relative value add.

Thinking about what Europe would bring to this order, I would look to what Europe does best as a start point. One idea that comes up is the high level of "social responsibility" displayed in Europe- think about putting the citizen (never mind it is just the European citizen) center-stage, think about democracy, liberal values, welfare state, people's needs etc. I think Europe could very credibly take an agenda setting leadership stance in issues pertaining to what would loosely be defined as "Social responsibility"- sort of defining the core around positioning the European brand.

The implications are not trivial- From Green technologies, Education, Healthcare, Corporate Governance, Infrastructure, Administration, Regulatory governance, the sectors this theme could cover are vast enough to sustain a very profitable economic and a leadership model for Europe.

Bill Gates and a new approach to capitalism

An account-What people are doing with their intelligence, wealth and knowledge to help the not so privileged… I find this very interesting, and fairly sophisticated in the way this is being approached by the single biggest kitty on the planet to help the underprivileged…

Trying to articulate bill gates view of a new Capitalism- Creative Capitalism as articulated in Davos…

The concern with market capitalism is that it tends to benefit the ones that need it the least, and penalizes the ones that will hurt the most. So we need a new capitalism- the challeng is to design a system where market incentives drive recognition in serving the underprivileged- market based social change- self interest with interest in fortune of others- creative capitalism- where govt,business and ngos stretch together…

Market: In Africa, they needed to find a vaccine to be priced at <50 cents- and a student in india found a new vaccine for 40 cents- and 250 million of these were sold- in another case, the dutch company for cholera vaccine that shared the rights for emerging world for free- resulting in a a Vietnam based drug manufacture priced at < $1.

Business: Government funds aid, research, healthcare- but the highest leverage is to set policy that sets market incentives for biz activities that help the poor- eg bush- any drug developed for say malaria- can get a priority review from fDA for another drug- bringing the other drug into the market a year early- worth 100s of millions.

NGO: If u give people a chance to associate with a cause they care, while buying products- they will buy- eg Red campaigns in Davos- $50 MM to fight aids, tb and malaria- impacting 2 million people.

I

Discussions at Davos- Water

This year, water was a topic of priority- 7 sessions including a plenary. Exremely complex, multiple facets (quality, quantity, use of water etc) big Sense of significant urgency but is eminently solveable problem. Convinced this is as big a problem…

Peter Brabeck and Nevill Isdel set the context –interesting large co ceos are passionately talking about water- both Coke and Nestle have a huge water footprint- but that's not enough-u use 9000 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bio diesel- the big issue is that water is not being valued. We "eat" a lot more water than we drink.

Potential solutions-

2^nd green revolution- addressing 70% of water consumption- perhaps using Biotech and Genetech-

Also we should not make decisions on other issues that exacerbate water situation-eg if we try and solve for the Co2 by increasing water use in creating Bio fuels, for instance, we are making a huge mistake- also currently oil takes about 2.5 liters of water/ liter of oil- if we go after new reserves in heavy oils and oil-sands will multiply by 10-=100 times.(steam injection)-

Last optimistic notes- perhaps market forces? Oman has a system for 4500 years- farmers have access to water that they pay for thro infra and thro money, and those rights are tradeable- every famrer can buy and sell water- the other interesting thing- a certain % goes to mosque for poor people.

Nuclear power as an option- dialogue from Davos

Another interesting debate from Davos- nuclear power/ proliferation and consequences…

There was an Iranian (Larijani) on the panel- interesting views. On a question on Iran's views on Israel- he made a point about anti-semitism being a western notion…

Brahma was emphatic about the cost of nuclear power not beign articulated well enough- the specific points were that the nuclear industry did not need to pay for the collateral costs of nuclear power- ex liability damages, cost of retiring plans, radioactive material management and storage, R&D etc… and hence the true costs of nuclear power would never justify the benefits.

Bad news for me! In todays world, I am sorta hoping that alternates to fossil fuels are perhaps the most cutial- and before solar/ wind become wide spread, there needs to be some bridging sources like nuclear power- if that aint it, what else is? And what will good ole india and china do?

America at Davos 08

Listening from the congress hall, I found Condy's speech at davos extremely moving- very eloquent address of the value of values and the need to act with it- a stellar job particularly given the credibility challenge the current presidency faces. A valiant attempt, perhaps, on her behalf trying to address the stereotypical American fallacies and take them head on.

Henry Kissinger was on stage open plenary as a co-chair as well- quite interesting- a throwback to a bygone era, perhaps? He made a point about idealism and realism- which was very interesting-something the art of the possible; about how u needed idealism if u wanted to lead, but needed realism to get there (all a bit confusing after a nearly sleepless night, but hey, there you go)-

Also heard a few views on the "Transatlantic alliance"- I think America has enough going on (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea) for it to legitimately not focus too much on Europe.

The one thing that came out for me is there seems to be an attempt to create a legacy for George Bush on perhaps gaining some ground around the Israel- Palestine situation. I must profess to skepticism here, don't know if he has enough going on for anyone to listen to him- albeit he is still the head of state of the most economically active nation.

That said, America still has the clout to have a commanding presence wherever it is represented , and it is represented in Force, in Davos -08.