ROME — Pope Francis has urged members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting at Davos this week to promote “far-sighted and ethically sound” models of globalization.
The World Economic Forum “aims to guide and strengthen political will and mutual cooperation,” the pontiff told them, and “provides an important opportunity for multi-stakeholder engagement to explore innovative and effective ways to build a better world.”
The process of globalization has by now “clearly demonstrated the interdependence of the world’s nations and peoples,” the pope said, and thus has “a fundamentally moral dimension.”
It is essential to promote “far-sighted and ethically sound models of globalization, which by their very nature must entail subordinating the pursuit of power and individual gain, be it political or economic, to the common good of our human family,” he said.
Authentic development “must be global, shared by all nations and in every part of the world, or it will regress even in areas marked hitherto by constant progress,” he stated.
It is therefore vital that “intergovernmental structures be able effectively to exercise their functions of control and guidance in the economic sector, since the achievement of the common good is an objective beyond the reach of individual states,” he declared.