This week the World Economic Forum gathers in Davos. Some 1,500 business leaders will be joined by 40 heads of state and a handful of academics and civil society representatives to consider how they can “improve the world through public-private partnerships” — or at least find a way to profit from the world’s problems and crises.

The great and the good will consider many questions, including whether public leadership is failing; how we build tomorrow’s future electricity industry; and why the aid system cannot cope.

You don’t have to be clairvoyant to predict that the answers will have a common theme — that without their business practices, their overseas investments, their entrepreneurial talent and their philanthropy, we will all be much worse off.

The fundamental question — whether the neoliberal model, which is as deeply embedded in international development as in other spheres of our lives, is part of the problem rather than the solution — will not feature.

This week, Global Justice Now (formerly the World Development Movement) publishes a report to expose the powerful myths perpetuated by those gathering at Davos — that the poor are getting richer; that big business runs things better; that markets will solve our problems; that all you need is growth; that everyone wins under free trade; that Africa needs our help; and that aid makes the world a fairer place.

At last year’s forum, Microsoft founder Bill Gates predicted that by 2035 there would be almost no poor countries left in the world.

There is of course plenty of evidence to show that the rich are getting richer.

By 2016, the richest 1 per cent is expected to own more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent.

But it is not the case that the poor are also getting richer.

The proportion of people living in extreme poverty, on less than $1.25 (83p) a day, in sub-Saharan Africa has hardly changed since 1981.

Even where there has been a reduction in poverty worldwide, much of this would be wiped out by marginally adjusting the poverty line to include those living on less than $1.27 a day.

And it is rarely acknowledged in the political and business circles of Davos that the vast majority of the fall in global poverty since 1981 is a result of China’s effectiveness at tackling poverty.

Citizens in Britain need little reminding of the consequences of allowing big business to run our services.

Twenty years after our railways were sold off we have one of the most expensive rail networks in Europe. The train operating companies have netted huge rates of return of 121 per cent, while we are subsidising them to the tune of £4 billion.

This business model is being exported around the world. And by creating new markets, for example in biodiversity and carbon offsetting, big business has more opportunities to apply the neoliberal business model.

This is made all the easier by the obsession with economic growth, without due attention to who is actually benefiting.

Countries from Mozambique to Nigeria are witnessing growth as well as rising poverty, demonstrating that growth in itself is not sufficient to address poverty.

The myth that everyone wins under free trade is used to cement the system at supranational level with complex trade rules.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a prime example.

Although Africa receives £30bn in overseas aid every year, it loses $192bn (£127.8bn) through a combination of tax evasion, repatriation of profits by multinational companies and debt repayments.

Even if other inflows of capital into Africa are added together, such as loans and private investment, the total flow of money into Africa is still just $134bn (£89.2bn).

It is simply not true that we are aiding Africa — the world takes $58bn more from the continent than it puts in.

International development has become an industry in itself and it will be well represented in Davos by several corporations which profit from aid.

Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) outsources work to private consultancy firms, such as Adam Smith International and Crown Agents.

In recent months Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening has moved DfID dangerously close to previously abandoned policies of tied aid, where British aid money is used to benefit British companies.

Some £600 million of British aid is supporting transnational corporations, including SABMiller and Diageo, to access land, seeds and resources in Africa, through the New Alliance for Food Nutrition and Security. Some £100m of British aid is encouraging the privatisation of electricity in Nigeria.

Aid has a role to play in tackling poverty, inequality and injustice. How else can public services or new tax collection systems be built and strengthened in many poor countries?

But aid cannot be effective if it promotes a free market ideology, which is fundamentally unable to deliver benefits for the majority.

No doubt this year’s World Economic Forum will be business as usual. We must continue to challenge their orthodoxy, that free markets and big business are the solution to global poverty and inequality, when they are the problem.

Polly Jones is head of campaigns and policy at Global Justice Now, formerly the World Development Movement.