The director of the Fondazione Scuola dei beni e delle attività culturali, Alessandra Vittorini will be one of the speakers at the second edition of the National Conference on Development Cooperation, organised by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (Aics).

In the wonderful settings of the Auditorium della Conciliazione in Rome, the protagonists of Italian Cooperation, including cooperators, volunteers, university representatives, and business leaders, came together to discuss the most pressing issues with the highest representatives of Italian and international institutions, ranging from food insecurity to poverty, wars and the climate emergency, pandemics, inequalities, and human rights violations. Speakers included the Cardinal Secretary of State of the Vatican, Pietro Parolin, the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, the Italian Minister of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance, Daniele Franco, the Italian Minister for Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, and the Executive Director of UNICEF, Catherine Russel, in addition to the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio and the Italian Deputy Minister in Charge of International Cooperation, Marina Sereni.

Within the various Panels on the programme, the P’s of Peace, People, Prosperity, Planet, and Partnership have been the main focus of discussions and debates. Five primary categories, spawned by the UN 2030 Agenda, are interconnected and, ideally, provided a gauge of the state of development cooperation and the paths forward, especially in light of two events that have distinguished the last two years: the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine.

In particular, the director of the Fondazione took part in the panel titled ‘Prosperity’ and presented the many experiences, analyses and data collected by the Foundation in its first years of activities in the education, research and cultural heritage fields. During his speech,  the director did not only share information about past activities of the Fondazione, but also highlighted the wide network of international collaborators and partners that the Fondazione has been able to activate in these years. Arqueo-Cuba, The International School of Cultural Heritage, Museos y territorio,  Urban Agenda e CHARTER: these are only a bite of the whole range of activities carried out by the foundation in these years, and that make clear the valuable role that culture plays for development cooperation.