This past Spring saw a group of us MBA students embark on a business trek to Geneva. This beautiful city with Lake Geneva at its heart is widely acknowledged as the worldwide centre for international cooperation and diplomacy. Geneva, for most of us is synonymous with the United Nations, but it has so much more to offer than just the headquarters of various UN agencies.

The business trek was an opportunity to visit organizations and people in the space of International Development and engage in meaningful dialogue with them. This attempt stems from the interest to learn about the functioning of these organizations, the impact of their work and also to establish personal contacts with people at these places.

The trek lasted 5 days and covered a breadth of organizations. Here is a brief overview of the organizations we visited.

· Global Humanitarian Forum: GHF was established by Kofi Annan in 2007. Its initial focus is to highlight the ‘human impact of climate change’, rather than the purely environmental aspects, and empowering societies to end that human suffering.

· Dalberg Consultancy: Dalberg is a management consultancy with offices around the world, focusing on strategic advice in International development and Globalisation.

Global Humanitarian Forum - with CEO Walter Fust

· World Health Organisation: Here we met with people in departments focusing on procurement and technical implementation of health programmes to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and TB.

· World Economic Forum: WEF is the foremost global community of business, political, intellectual and other leaders of society who are committed to improving the state of the world. The Forum is an independent, not-for-profit organization that brings these leaders together to work on projects that improve people’s lives. We met with an SBS alumnus here, who is a Scenario Planner, looking at alternative futures for financial systems, amongst other things. During the course of our visit, we were plesantly surprised to encounter Klaus Schwab, the Chairman of WEF. He had a few good words of advice for us. He stressed on the need for us to spend time each day to read about what is happening around us in the world. An ability to synthesise all this information and form an opinion is essential in today’s world, he said.

At the World Economic Forum

· Global Fund: GF now separate from WHO, finances key programmes on HIV/ AIDS, Malaria and TB, through partnership working, donor support and UN funds.

· The International AIDS Society: IAS is the world’s leading independent association of HIV/AIDS professionals. It provides critical platforms for presenting new research, sharing best practice, education and networking, in tackling HIV/AIDS.

In these interactions, we not only learnt about the operations of these organizations, but also the key economic, environmental and health issues facing the world today. We became more aware of the role played by them in engaging with governments and shaping global policies. While the students displayed keen interest on how they could engage themselves in any of these organizations, the hosts themselves were pleased to offer guidance on career prospects.

The cluster of International organisations in Geneva is both strength and a weakness. While it allows for debate and free flow of ideas, there seemed to be a tendency for the rest of the world to bracket them out as elite and out of touch with grassroots’ realities. The truth is somewhere in between.

At the UN General Assembly

Geneva - by the night

We also found time to soak ourselves in the beauty of the city and just enjoy the sun.