Prince William has taken his campaign to increase awareness of mental health problems to Davos.
Global leaders queued for nearly an hour to hear the Duke of Cambridge, who was speaking at the World Economic Forum alongside the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to call for an end to the stigma that surrounds mental health issues.
The prince suggested the stiff upper lip approach of the wartime generation was responsible for some of the stigma. “Wartime was very, very difficult for everybody,” he said, adding that it was thought “no matter how much you would talk, you were never going to fix the issue”.
Davos is a Swiss ski resort now more famous for hosting the annual four-day conference for the World Economic Forum. For participants it is a festival of networking. Getting an invitation is a sign you have made it – and the elaborate system of badges reveals your place in the Davos hierarchy.
For critics, “Davos man” is shorthand for the globe-trotting elite, disconnected from their home countries after spending too much time in the club-class lounge. Others just wonder if it is all a big waste of time.
Who is there?
More than 2,500 people – business leaders, world leaders, diplomats and the odd celebrity, such as Matt Damon – will fly in for the 49th annual Davos meeting. Most delegates are men, and although the forum boasts delegates from more than 100 countries, most hail from western Europe, followed by the US. Sir David Attenborough is one of the most notable attendees in 2019, while Donald Trump, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron all pulled out at short notice to focus on more pressing issues at home.
“A whole generation decided that this was the best way of dealing with it. They then, completely by accident, passed that on to the next generation. So a whole generation inherited [the idea] that this was the way you deal with your problems: you don’t talk about it.”
William said a new generation in the UK was finally realising “this is not normal, we should talk about it”.
Ardern said she had lost friends to suicide. “One of the sad facts for New Zealand is that everyone knows someone who has taken their own life. We’re a small country, of less than 5 million people, but last year more than 600 people committed suicide,” she said.
Ardern has made mental health a key priority for her government, increasing spending and putting specialised mental health nurses in schools across the country.
