Just under 3,000 of the world's great and good will assemble at the World Economic Forum meeting in New York - the first time the talks have been held outside the Swiss resort of Davos since their inception 30 years ago. The move to New York is a significant gesture to the city that suffered both emotional and financial loss in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Though the WEF talks pose a logistical nightmare for the authorities of Manhattan, they also bring much needed income to a city that has recorded an unprecedented downturn in tourism.

Last year's gathering met to discuss global economic slowdown, the gap between the developed and developing world and the threat of mass anti-globalistion protestors, such as those who had inflicted so much damage at the World Trade Organistion's talks in Seattle and later at the G8 meeting in Genoa.

The focus of the 2002 talks has shifted from the purely economic. This year, the meeting will discuss bridging the gap between religions and faiths. In 2001, delegations from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states attended for the first time, this year's meeting will see representation from Iran, Afghanistan, the Islamic Development Bank and Malaysia.

In the 2001 session much of the debate centred on globalisation. Vicente Fox, Mexico's president, voiced the concerns of those 1.2bn people who live on less than $1 a day, and protested that "attempts to sugarcoat the present form of gloablisation with compensatory policies are not enough - not nearly enough in the very divided and unequal societies that now occupy so much of the globe".

Mr Fox's clarion call came at the same time as the first gathering of the 'World Social Forum', a meeting convened in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, to discuss the dangers of globalisation.

His remarks were echoed by demands from Alec Erwin, South Africa's trade minister, to address the needs of the developing world through new trade discussions - later launched at the World Trade Organisation's ministerial meeting in Qatar in November.

The world economic slowdown was already in evidence in 2001, with a group of economists predicting a short-lived slowdown in world growth. Whilst the terrorist attacks and their resulting economic impact could not have been foreseen, it appears that those economists might have been right. In the past month, figures on US employment, industrial production, consumer confidence and durable goods orders have all revealed positive signs, leading to hopes that a recovery in the US might already be under way.

Finally, the threat of violent anti-globalisation protests was a key talking-point at Davos. The gathering was secured by checkpoints manned by armed police and entrance points were surrounded by barbed wire and mesh fencing. These precautions had been taken not only to protect the delegates, which included Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa and Bill Gates of Microsoft, but to avoid a repetition of the riots that marked the WTO meeting in Seattle.

Debate remains as to whether the WEF is just a rich-man's club playing lip service to the concerns of those on the outside, but this is a club with massive influence and a big budget that will be appreciated by New York and will be sorely missed by the citizens of Switzerland in 2002.