DAVOS, Switzerland — Standing in the main hallway of the Congress Center on the last day of World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last month, I stopped development leaders as they passed and asked a simple question: “What’s your main takeaway for the global development community?”
The big agency chiefs, senior NGO executives, and social entrepreneurs paused in their tracks, pursed their lips, and looked to the ceiling. They were suffering from a common affliction here: Information overload. The savvier ones turned the question back on me, and I stammered something about needing more time to process the many futuristic innovations and geopolitical trends highlighted during the week.
Now, some days after that intense period of hypernetworking and big thinking, I’ve come to a conclusion about what this year’s Davos gathering meant for our community: Development leaders need to be plumbers.