SA will have to sing a much better tune at Davos 2016

It's too easy to dismiss the annual World Economic Forum gathering in the remote Swiss village of Davos as just another global talk shop.

It's too easy to dismiss the annual World Economic Forum gathering in the remote Swiss village of Davos as just another global talk shop.

Sure, a lot of talking gets done, there is no resolution at the end of it and attendees can be a little ... how to put this politely ... smug about their inclusion at one of the world's more exclusive events. It would be churlish, however, to ignore its importance.

It's the one place on Earth where politicians, campaigners, funders, business leaders and technocrats can hold the equivalent of high-level speed dating sessions with easy access to one another within a square kilometre in a short space of time.

Diaries are packed and the time is used to their full advantage.

It was in Davos last year that Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko met global suppliers of the state-controlled telecoms group to ask for 50% cost reductions - he got 30% on average and was here again this year for more arm twisting. Davos regular and FirstRand chairman Laurie Dippenaar attends only the sessions where he can see and hear first-hand what political and business leaders are thinking. He prefers to do his meetings at home.

First-timer Ben Magara from Lonmin, incoming Naspers chairman Koos Bekker, new Advtech CEO Leslie Maasdorp, Nedbank CEO Mike Brown and SAB Africa head Mark Bowman were among the high-powered South African business delegation that came for meetings or attended sessions on topics as diverse as robots replacing human workers to fighting Ebola, and to hear how politicians hope to maintain the increasingly tentative, relative peace of the post-World War 2 world.

The 45th annual Davos gathering this week saw record attendance. About 2500 participants from 100 countries, including more than 50 from South Africa, braved the journey to the Swiss village as their predecessors had since the early 1970s.

Hosting the event in Davos, population 11000, is a stroke of genius. You have to want to get here and some of the world's richest and most powerful people make the effort. The biggest single group is American. Nearly 800 of them, including Microsoft-founder-turned-philanthropist Bill Gates, make the journey, along with delegates from Latin America, Australia and far-flung New Zealand.

About 1700 private jets are used to bring delegates to Davos, which for the rest of us is accessed using a combination of planes, trains and automobiles.

Once you are here, you have to participate.

The South African message was not helped by Eskom's cheap domestic point-scoring stunt in the run-up to the event when the chairman, CEO, senior executive and Davos regular Steve Lennon cancelled their trip. Yes, it saved Eskom some money in travel and accommodation, which it got back, but there is no guarantee that the hefty WEF attendance fees, about R200000 a head, will be refunded. In the minds of potential investors, the Eskom no-show amplified the extent of the crisis.

The pan-African growth story has more potential and South Africa has attached itself to that theme. The reality for most delegates here, though, is that the event was held against a backdrop of slowing global growth, inflated asset prices due to central bank interventions in the US, Japan and Europe, and mounting geo-political tensions. The African continent got a good hearing, but top of the global agenda, as far as international delegates were concerned, was Ebola and how to stem a future potential pandemic.

South Africa has had a love affair with the annual gathering since the 1990s when Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk and Mangosuthu Buthelezi appeared together to reassure international investors that the country was not on a greasy pole to imminent self-destruction. Now, 23 years since that momentous gathering, the group led by President Jacob Zuma, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, and ministers Jeff Radebe, Ebrahim Patel and Rob Davies came to deliver a similar message, all singing from the same hymn sheet.

South Africa's economic woes are due to its legacy, the country has a plan and the power crisis will be resolved - there is a good story to tell. Sub-Saharan growth rates - excluding South Africa's paltry 1.4% contribution - may be north of 5%, but in the lofty heights of global high finance, it is all about satisfying self- interest. South Africa is not top of the list.

Delegates to Davos 2015 seem their most risk-averse since the dark post-crash days of 2009 and if South Africa wants to make real progress here, it needs a better story to tell next time round.

It felt a bit like the threadbare carpet installed in the hall of one of the less expensive local hotels at the time of the Mandela visit: nice to look at, but wearing a bit thin.

Bruce Whitfield is a financial writer and broadcaster who attended this week's WEF gathering in Davos