DAVOS — The 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting closed Friday on a creative note with four artists sharing their visions of how painting, photography, film and dance can inspire empathy with other people’s stories. Across more than 400 sessions, one key theme kept emerging: the need to embrace our common humanity in the face of the rapid technological changes ushered in by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Wrapping up the final session, Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation and one of the seven female Co-Chairs of the meeting, celebrated the spirit of inclusion, diversity and respect for human rights that characterized this year’s meeting. She paid tribute to the meeting’s artists, whose work put people at the center of the story and concluded with a call to action: “Let’s ensure that Davos 2018 is just the beginning of a movement where we globalize compassion and ensure a world in which no one is left behind.” The 48th Annual Meeting was convened under the theme, Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World with the aim of identifying ways for humanity to work collectively once more in the face of urgent global and regional challenges. Here is a selection of outcomes of the Annual Meeting: Mending our fractured world Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece, and Zoran Zaev, Prime Minister of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, held the first meeting at prime-minister level for seven years. The discussion led to a framework being agreed to intensify the negotiations on an end to the naming dispute, which is being presided over by the UN. In addition to the West Balkans, the Forum’s series of Diplomacy Dialogues has committed to supplementing ongoing multilateral efforts in the Korean Peninsula, Venezuela, sub-Saharan Africa and Somalia. Looking to the Middle East and North Africa region, a Forum community of Israeli and Palestinian business leaders met at the annual meeting to renew their commitment to the two-state solution and pledge their support to strengthening the Palestinian economy given the opportunity of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In the same region, the Forum also formed a new community of businesspeople who have committed to advise and support Haider Al Abadi, prime minister of Iraq, on the reconstruction of the country. Denmark became the first European country to partner with the World Economic Forum. The scope of the agreement will see Denmark collaborate closely with the Forum in a number of areas, including promoting green growth, trade and education, gender and work. Denmark will also partner with the Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco as it works to design governance principles to shape the technologies of the future. The Government of Saudi Arabia signed a Letter of Intent to partner with the World Economic Forum. The scope of the agreement covers the Forum’s System Initiatives, the Global Centre for Cybersecurity and the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Systems leadership Preparing workers for the future: A Forum report published during the meeting, Towards a Reskilling Revolution, provides the guidance needed to find new, gainful employment for the millions of workers expected to lose their jobs due to technological change. Separately, the Forum announced two initiatives that will have a direct impact on workers: Closing the Skills Gap, a global, business-led scheme that aims to deliver new skills to 10 million workers by 2020; and the IT Industry Skills Initiative, whose SkillSET portal aims to reach 1 million IT workers by 2021. Closing the Gender Gap: Peru became the fourth country in Latin America to adopt the Forum’s Closing the Gender Gap model, following earlier adoption in Chile, Argentina and Panama. Five additional countries are considering adoption over the course of 2018. Unlocking nature’s value: A new plan was announced to mimic the success of the human genome map by sequencing the DNA of all life on earth. Under the auspices of the Forum’s Fourth Industrial Revolution for the Earth initiative, two projects, the Earth Bio-Genome Project (EBP) and the Earth Bank of Codes will, if successful, help avert extinction as well as tackle bio-piracy and habitat loss by unlocking value from nature’s biological and biomimetic assets. Bridging the digital divide: Mercedes Aráoz, Prime Minister of Peru, announced plans to launch an Internet for All program in 2018. Fighting financial crime and modern slavery: Thomson Reuters, Europol and the Forum are partnering to tackle money laundering and trafficking in human misery. The partnership will aim to raise greater awareness among global leaders, promote more effective information-sharing and improve compliance best practices. Taking on fake news: A new joint venture funded by the Craig Newmark Foundation in collaboration with the World Economic Forum was launched. Bringing Internet platform giants together with multistakeholder leaders, the initiative will be developed further through 2018. Meanwhile, a joint venture launched by Internews in collaboration with the Forum aimed to promote high-quality local news and information. Advancing the Fourth Industrial Revolution Governing the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which opened in March 2017, expanded with a number of new partnerships. New centers will be added to the network in India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, Bahrain, Denmark, the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Kingdom joined as partners alongside Deutsche Bank, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. On the Forum’s platform for Public-Private Cooperation Empowering women entrepreneurs: The Mann Deshi Foundation, a rural Indian cooperative bank run by and for women established by the meeting’s Co-Chair Chetna Sinha, announced the launch of a Rs100 million fund to encourage more women at the bottom of the pyramid to become entrepreneurs. Addressing up to gender bias: The Forum’s Global Shapers Community teamed with Procter & Gamble to raise awareness among young people about gender equality. The partnership will include a social media campaign and a $100,000 grant challenge to support grassroots, youth-led solutions. Sustainability: The World Economic Forum has obtained independent recognition for sustainable event management of the Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters and has received the ISO 20121 certification, following audits by DNVGL. PublicisLive, the Forum’s official provider of logistics and key support services, has received the same certification. The ISO 20121 standard enables event organizers to implement concrete sustainability actions in a rigorous way. SG/WEF