No, WEF head Klaus Schwab did not say U.N. Agenda 2030 is ‘failing’

What's the claim? 

Several posts circulating on social media have claimed that the head of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab, has "accepted" that the United Nations (U.N) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is "failing." The posts shared a screenshot of an article headline, "Klaus Schwab Admits Agenda 2030 Is Failing As Millions Rise Up Against New World Order."

One such Facebook post (archived here) includes a screenshot from the article with the caption, "WEF will gain total control over humanity." We found another Facebook post (archived here) that had shared a link to an X post (formerly Twitter), which shared this article published by the website The People's Voice, with the caption, "Klaus Schwab Admits Agenda 2030 Is Failing As Millions Rise Up Against New World Order. Like cornered rats the Globalist Parasites and members of the World Economic Forum with their WEF2030 agenda are fearful. The people are waking up in Canada UK USA. Keep rising, keep shouting, keep pushing back . DON'T STOP UNTIL they have all been eliminated! (sic)"

The narrative is also being shared on X and TikTok. Archives of such posts can be seen here, here, and here.

Screenshots of posts circulating online. (Source: X/TikTok/Screenshots/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the claim is false. Klaus Schwab has made no such statement.

What are the facts?

The claim stems from an article published on September 25, 2023, by The People's Voice (archived here), a Los Angeles-based clickbait website known for sharing misinformation. Logically Facts has previously debunked narratives pushed by the website. 

We reviewed The People's Voice article and found no evidence to support the claim. The article quotes conspiracy theories linked to Agenda 2030, which falsely states that elites and organizations like WEF will take control of the human population. It also includes an eight-minute video of anchor Sean Adl-Tabatabai talking about these conspiracy theories, claiming that "Schwab's plans are not going accordingly as people are waking up to the truth against his evil agenda." 

The video contains several out-of-context videos featuring author and professor Noah Yuval Harari, whom they claim to be Schwab's right-hand man. Harari has, in the past, been wrongly associated with the WEF. He is not an official member. Logically Facts has debunked this misconception. Yann Zopf, the Head of Media and Member of the Executive Committee at the WEF has also previously confirmed that Harari has no affiliation with the organization. 

The U.N. 2030 Agenda is a sustainable development plan adopted in 2015. It laid out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to end poverty and hunger, combat inequalities, protect human rights, and 15 others by 2030, which has often been the subject of conspiracy theories. 

The WEF and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres signed a strategic partnership framework in 2019 to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, we did not find Klaus Schwab making any such statement about the agenda, as claimed in the viral posts. 

However, an update on the U.N. website about the plan after the 2023 SDG summit on September 18 and 19 in New York notes, "At the halftime mark, the promise is in deep peril." It states that the "development progress is reversing under the combined impacts of climate disasters, conflict, economic downturn, and lingering COVID-19 effects." It also stated the current summit pushed forward to recharge momentum and called for world leaders to resolve it and do more. However, it did not report any "failing" plans. 

Subsequently, an article on the WEF website published in September 2022 and updated in 2023 did question the progress of the plan but did not state it to be "failing." The article was not written by Schwab either. 

Logically Facts also contacted WEF for a response. WEF Head of Media Engagement, Yann Zopf, said, "I can confirm that these claims are fake news created to discredit the important work that the World Economic Forum does on serious global challenges."

The verdict

Klaus Schwab did not say that the U.N. Agenda 2030 saying that is "failing." WEF spokesperson also confirmed that such claims are false. These narratives are part of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that have originated from a website known to spread misinformation. Therefore, we have marked the claim as false.