From La Maddalena to Aquila: Italian Global Changemaker meets G8 Sherpa

Sunday, 7 June 2009 | posted by Matt_BC
G-20 London Summit 2009, Politics

Following the disappointment of not being able to meet our Italian delegation during last April’s G20 in London due to the intense and difficult programme that the leaders themselves had to get through, the British Council arranged for me to fly into Rome to meet Pasquale Salzano, Head of Italy’s G8 Sherpa Office.  I was really excited about being given this opportunity to represent my fellow Global Changemakers and being able to give some feedback from our workshop.

After some discussion concerning the agenda and the motivation and usefulness of having meetings such as the G8 and the G20 I asked Dr. Salzano for his opinion on the present situation which young people are currently facing in Italy following the economic crisis and whether their future would be on the July G8 agenda.  He felt that what Italy’s young people were presently going through was no different from their companions in similar countries.  In fact he felt that his own team was the proof of this because the average age of the people working in his office was 30-35 years old.  In fact many of them had decided to leave the countries where they were working and return to Italy to be part of the team.  According to Dr. Salzano, for a young person to achieve success in today’s workplace not only is it necessary to have a strong educational background and he felt that the Italian education system was one of the best in the world, but also to have at least one well chosen specialisation, have a good knowledge of several languages and to have travelled widely.  By travelling he did not mean sightseeing the capitals of Europe but getting out into the working world and gaining as much experience as possible!  He also assured me that the future of young people world wide would have its own programme at the G8 called Future Sources of Growth.

We also spoke about the current position in many of the underdeveloped countries which we felt in London had not been sufficiently addressed.  Although the situation is serious he believed that how it was handled at the G20 was correct.  To tackle the various issues in these countries there is a need to get to the core of the problem, which is to resolve the economic crisis in the Western world.  As soon as the situation improves in developed countries they will then be in a position to give concrete help to their underdeveloped neighbours.  The G8 will also give ample space to tackling this delicate issue.

Our discussion then turned to another “hot” issue in Italy, especially for me being Sardinian, and that is the change of venue for the G8 from La Maddalena to the town of Aquila.  Dr. Salzano explained that the need came from the gravity of the situation in the Abruzzo region following the recent earthquake.  The Italian Government had chosen to react following two important elements: with “solidarity” towards all those who have been involved in some way in the disaster and with “sobriety”, which would not have been the case if the G8 was to be held in La Maddalena.  Although he perfectly understood the fears of the Sardinian people, Dr. Salzano assured me that the various works which had been programmed for the G8 would be completed and that the island would in any event have an economical and tourist relaunch following its past as an American military base and would become “the pearl of Sardinia”.  La Maddalena and the change of venue of the G8 would remain in any case a symbol of the G8 logo which will read “G8: from La Maddalena to Aquila”.

We also spoke about the environment.  According to Dr. Salzano making people aware of the key issues is fundamental because there are still too many people who have not understood how serious climate change is and how much each one of us can do to combat this phenomenon.  I suggested that the re-building programme in Aquila could be an example of a new “green” community with the houses not only being antiseismic but also eco-compatible, to which he replied that he was confident that these measures would indeed be of a high priority in the reconstruction programme.

I really found this meeting interesting because not only did it give me the opportunity of reporting back on the opportunity given to me by the British Council in London and on the enthusiasm and commitment of my fellow Global Changemakers, but it also gave me a glimpse of the complexity of meetings such as the G8, and of the many agendas that need to be addressed in such a brief time.

- Virginia Ledda