World Economic Forum’s Corporate Diplomacy: Milestones and Strategies of Its Alliance with the United Nations
Abstract
The article analyzes the milestones and strategic mechanisms through which the World Economic Forum has built its partnership with the United Nations. It identifies three key moments: the 1990s UN Global Compact, which consolidated the paradigm of corporate social and environmental responsibility; the Global Redesign Initiative, which encouraged a model of global stakeholder governance, in conjunction with the adoption of the UN development agenda (2010-2015); and the 2019 memorandum, which formalized the relationship at the executive level by establishing mechanisms and procedures for defining common approaches and tactics. Based on a qualitative methodological design that combines historical-processual analysis with critical discourse analysis, strategic documents from the WEF, official UN documents, specialized bibliography, and reports from critical international institutions were analyzed. It is concluded that the Forum's strategic repertoire focuses on: discursive alignment around inclusive globalization, erosion of institutional boundaries, naturalization of its presence in UN spaces, multidimensional governance, provision of cognitive frameworks, and simulation of deliberative processes.
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