Switzerland

The Other Davos, 16-17 January 2026

Thursday 25 December 2025, by BFS/MPS

For more than 25 years, the “Other Davos” has been creating a counter-power to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. This year’s conference focuses on our anti-militarist responses to the escalation of imperialist tensions and wars, as well as on internationalist solidarity with Palestine.


After 40 years of neoliberal economic doctrine, we are going through an increase in social injustices, an impoverishment of an ever-increasing part of the population and a crisis of bourgeois liberal democracy, from which the conservative and reactionary far right is taking advantage. The gains of feminist movements are being called into question and incitement to racial hatred and militarisation are the new norm of (inter)national politics.

However, we are not only facing a political and social crisis, but also an economic crisis. The unstable prospects for growth and profit are leading to increased competition in the global race for control of value chains, natural resources, new markets and profitable investment opportunities. Imperialist tensions and the resulting wars lead to an arms race and militarisation of societies at home and abroad.

Austerity measures in favour of the arms industry and tax giveaways to the rich accentuate social inequalities. At the same time, the ecological crisis is worsening, with increasingly irreversible consequences. The climate crisis, species extinction and the destruction of ecosystems are in turn fuelling social conflicts and reducing the space in which we can achieve a society of solidarity.

The WEF and the far right

These overlapping crises have one thing in common: they are the result of the capitalist economic system, in which a handful of people hold all the wealth that the vast majority of workers produce every day. Since 1971, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has been bringing together the profiteers of this economic order to promote the neoliberal and authoritarian transformation of society.

In addition, every year in Davos, Switzerland, a platform is offered to the far right. For example, at the WEF 2025, far-right Argentine President Javier Milei proudly announced that he was forming a “global alliance of freedom against the hegemony of the woke left” with Musk, Meloni, Bukele, Orbán, Netanyahu and Trump. The WEF is therefore not a space for dialogue, but a tool for strengthening the domination and profits of the powerful.

The list of sponsors resembles a Who’s Who of fossil capital. Therefore, when the so-called economic leaders and the global political elite meet in Davos in January, no solution to the crises will be presented, but their causes will be further aggravated.
From resistance to liberation

At the Other Davos, which will be held on 16 and 17 January 2026 in Zurich under the motto “From Resistance to Liberation”, we will build a counter-power to this "alliance" of capitalists, bourgeois and fascists together. We bring together activists from many countries to develop ecosocialist, feminist and anti-imperialist responses to the wars and crises of capitalism. Bringing together activists from around the world is at the heart of the conference, as we see it as the key to global change. The global uprisings against corruption and the status quo, the multiplication of strikes, as well as the international movement of solidarity with Palestine thus carry a new internationalism.

This year’s guests at the Other Davos include the anti-Zionist Israeli historian Ilan Pappe (online), Asallah Mansour and other Palestinian feminists, the Syrian activist Leila Al-Shami, Oleksandr Kyselov and Olena Tkalich from the socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh from Ukraine, the socialists Avery Wear and Shireen Akram-Boshar from the United States, the comrades of the ex-GKN factory collective and the trade unionists of Sudd Cobas from the Florence region, anti-racist activists from Border Forensics in Geneva and the NoMore Committee in Basel, the feminist strike collective in Zurich, activists from critical social work (KriSo), the collective of critical teachers (KriLp) and students of critical psychology from Zurich, as well as many other activists from Switzerland and neighbouring countries.

The conference is organised by the Movement for Socialism (BFS/MPS) and will be held at the Volkshaus in Zurich (accessible to people with reduced mobility). The discussions will be translated into German, English and French. The plenaries and some workshops will be streamed live on YouTube. For the programme see here

26 November 2025

Translated by International Viewpoint from sozialismus.ch.

Attached documentsthe-other-davos-16-17-january-2026_a9327.pdf (PDF - 907.3 KiB)
Extraction PDF [->article9327]


BFS/MPS is a Permanent Observer organization of the Fourth International in Switzerland.
Country