The Long Road Back to Trust: Lessons from Davos

After participating in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos on 22 January 2026, Ignacio Packer, Executive Director of the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation, reflects on the question that stayed with him most: "Can trust still hold in today’s fragmented world?" In this blog, he explores what the erosion of trust means for democracy, cooperation, and leadership — and where renewal might begin.

I’m writing this on the train, on my way back from the World Economic Forum in Davos, with one word echoing in my mind: trust.

I went to Davos this year for three reasons. First, I draw energy from the sheer density of conversations — the collisions of ideas, experiences, and disciplines that are hard to replicate elsewhere. A particular highlight was a lunch discussion on trust organised by the Geneva Graduate Institute, which brought a rare depth and honesty to a concept too often used loosely.

Second, Davos places me face to face with people living very different lives, shaped by different assumptions and priorities. It stretches my capacity to listen carefully and to understand perspectives I do not naturally share.

Third, I wanted to be present in key conversations on food systems, especially as I have just joined the Global Advisory Committee for the Global Conscious Food Systems Summit taking place later this year in Bhutan, led by UNDP-COFSA. At a time of accelerating ecological and social strain, food systems are where trust, power, and human security intersect most visibly.

Across these conversations, one theme was everywhere — and nowhere taken for granted: trust.

Leaders spoke in markedly different registers. Some used blunt force - even disrespectful - rhetoric, others chose calibrated restraint in describing a world shaped by fragmentation, geopolitical tension, technological disruption, and democratic strain. What struck me most was not only what was said about trust, but how leaders are behaving in its absence.

Increasingly, trust is no longer assumed. It is managed.

Powerful actors rely on leverage, pressure, and transactional frameworks to keep cooperation going. Alliances are maintained through safeguards and redundancy rather than confidence. Europe speaks of unity while quietly pursuing greater autonomy. Business is asked to act as a stabiliser, even as public confidence in institutions continues to erode.

These arrangements may keep systems functioning in the short term, but they do not renew legitimacy.

Systems held together primarily by pressure, rules, and transactional deals do not rebuild trust. Without legitimacy, peace becomes fragile and democracy becomes procedural. People may comply, but they no longer believe. Over time, that erosion fuels polarisation, weakens institutions, and increases the risk of conflict.

This is why the question of trust cannot be treated as a communications problem or a governance tweak. It is fundamentally a human one.

A Call to Action — and a Call for Inner Development

This is a call to all who exercise influence — including the current U.S. administration and other global power centres — to lead with integrity, tell the truth, repair what has been harmed, and choose dialogue over domination. In a world under strain, the most strategic asset is not leverage.
It is trust.

Rebuilding trust requires more than institutional reform. It requires inner development — the capacity for self-reflection, responsibility, and moral courage. Without this inner work, external systems inevitably default to control, coercion, and performance.

This is where the work of the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation is especially relevant today.

Trust as a Human and Relational Process

For decades, our work in Caux has approached trust not as a slogan or reputational asset, but as a human and relational process. It has offered neutral ground where political, economic, and cultural divides can be faced honestly, and where cooperation begins with personal responsibility and integrity (read more).

In a world moving toward what some describe as “managed interdependence,” such spaces matter more, not less. Places like the Caux Palace, our centre for dialogue and peacebuilding, allow people to step out of posturing and pressure, meet across divides, and rebuild the relationships that make genuine cooperation possible.

Democracy, after all, does not fail only when institutions weaken.
It fails when trust between citizens, leaders, and systems is allowed to disappear.

Convening in Caux to rebuild trust

This is why the Caux Foundation will convene its annual Caux Democracy Forum from 22–26 June 2026, opening with a dedicated ceremony at the Maison de la Paix in Geneva. The forum creates space to revitalise democracy, renew hope, foster healing, and strengthen human security across sectors and generations.

Because trust is deeply human, Caux will also host the Caux Inner Development Goals Forum from 13–17 July 2026, under the theme “The Alchemy of Forgiveness.” By placing forgiveness and inner development at the heart of leadership and systems change, this forum strengthens the personal foundations of peace, resilience, and democratic culture. It supports the difficult but necessary movement from compliance to conscience, from polarisation to repair, and from performative cooperation to lasting legitimacy.

So the question I leave Davos with is not only: can trust still hold?
It is: what are we prepared to do to rebuild it?

Trust will not return through declarations or forums alone. It will return if leaders, institutions, businesses, and citizens choose to invest time, courage, and humility in rebuilding relationships, listening across divides, and aligning power with responsibility.

Choosing the hard work of togetherness

This is an invitation to step out of managed coexistence and into intentional togetherness. Caux offers a place to do precisely that — not as spectators, but as participants. Not to manage decline, but to renew legitimacy.

The work of rebuilding trust cannot be postponed, and it cannot be done alone. It begins wherever we decide to show up, engage honestly, and take responsibility for the future we are shaping together.

You are welcome to Caux.

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