每年的达沃斯世界经济论坛都会吸引各国首脑和金融大亨们到场，但他们当中女性的比例却小得可怜。为此，世界经济论坛组织方今年特意出台了一项新规，要求战略伙伴们在出席论坛时需保证女性成员占到男性的五分之一。

'Strategic partners' at annual World Economic Forum¹ meeting must bring one woman in every five senior executives.

Each year, prime ministers, bankers, business tycoons² and other movers and shakers of the global elite³ gather at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss Alpine⁴ town of Davos. And each year, one key thing has been missing: women.

Now, in an attempt to improve the traditionally dismal⁵（凄凉的，忧郁的） gender⁶ balance at this month's event, which starts a week next Tuesday, the WEF has for the first time imposed a minimum quota⁷（配额，定额） of women.

The forum's "strategic partners" – a group of about 100 companies including Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank – have been told they must bring along at least one woman in every group of five senior executives sent to the high-profile event. Strategic partners account for 500 of the 2,500 participants expected this year at a gathering⁸ where David Cameron will rub shoulders with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, historian Niall Ferguson, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, at least one member of the Saudi royal family and countless⁹ business supremos and members of the academic elite.

"The World Economic Forum annual meeting engages the highest levels of leadership from a variety of sectors¹⁰ and participation¹¹ figures are a reflection of the scarcity¹² of women in this external pool," said Saadia Zahidi, who heads the gender parity¹³ programme at the WEF and came up with the quota plan.

At Davos, the world's most powerful men (and a few women) broker¹⁴ multimillion-pound deals behind the scenes of the conferences. The forum's black-tie dinners, cocktail¹⁵ parties and other less formal encounters are the ultimate networking events and those present follow the old "contacts lead to contracts" motto.

But so far, relatively¹⁶ few women have benefited from this high-level schmoozing（闲谈，聊天） . Women made up only 9-15% of those present between 2001 and 2005. Progress has been made – last year 17% were women – but Zahidi insists they can do much better.

"Closing gender gaps has been an important concern at the World Economic Forum for the last decade," she said.

Fewer than 3% of chief executives of the world's biggest 500 companies are women, and a little over 15% of ministerial and parliamentary positions are occupied by women, the WEF said today.

Critics may argue that one in five is actually a pretty small achievement, and real progress would call for two or three. Just finding one suitably senior candidate this year, however – given the gender balance in the global business elite – may prove enough of a challenge.