Sustainable development: a common track for emerging and mature economies

At the fourth congress of the Cav. Lav. Carlo Pesenti Foundation a round table with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz: “globalization is an inevitable process.”



 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 

A hypothetical bridge providing a direct link to enable the industrialized and emerging nations to examine global growth issues along a single path toward sustainability.
This was the guideline for the fourth annual congress of the Fondazione Cav. Lav. Carlo Pesenti held at the Bergamo Conference Center, which this year examined the theme “Sustainable Development: a common track for emerging and mature economies”.
 

After the welcome and opening address delivered by the foundation’s Chairman, Giovanni Giavazzi, the more than four hundred delegates at the congress heard a paper from Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, whose “Initiative for Policy Dialogue” project offered an analysis of the errors and benefits of globalization to help the emerging nations explore all the possible economic policy alternatives and enable wider, informed civic participation in policy-making.

 


 

Joseph E. Stiglitz: globalization is an inevitable process.

 

The project, an exhaustive study followed, in subsequent years, by the work that won the Nobel prize — an examination of information imbalances and their impact on the markets—, led Stiglitz to conclude that globalization is an inevitable process that can be harnessed to augment the wealth of the more backward countries and the populations of the developed countries through a mixture of solidarity policies and action by international bodies.

 

According to Stiglitz, economic globalization is a positive force that can drive growth and improve the living standards of the world’s poorest peoples. It requires a review of trade agreements, economic policies imposed on the developing nations, international aid and the global financial system.

 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 

Reforms

 

These and other reforms would enable globalization to develop its full potential, without prejudice to democracy and social justice. The congress also heard video contributions from Al Gore, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner, TaoTao Chen, a lecturer at the Center for China – Tsinghua University, Beijing, Barack Obama, one of the US senators running for the Democratic Party nomination for the 2008 presidential elections, and Suketu Metha, writer and journalist, short-listed for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.

 

In his message, Al Gore stressed that as far as the environment is concerned “We are facing a planetary emergency, one that threatens the future of human civilization. Members of the global business community, governments, and civil society all have a responsibility when it comes to the climate crisis. Some action has been taken: Italy, for example, boasts the 7th highest installed wind power capacity in the world and has doubled its overall renewable energy resources since 1990. This is a trend that must continue to accelerate, but it can only advance through better partnership between government and industry.”

 


 

The Fondazione Cav. Lav. Carlo Pesenti Congress ended with a round table, where, in addition to Joseph Stiglitz, the panel members were Tito Boeri, Professor of Economics at Milan’s Bocconi University, and Moushira Khattab, Secretary General of Egypt’s National Council for Childhood and Motherhood and Vice Chairman of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

 


 

Concluding the Congress, Carlo Pesenti underlined the consistency of the Group’s policies with the principles of Sustainability: “By embracing sustainability we have created an industrial group that expresses a modern, innovative attitude and the enormous capacity of the various Group divisions to work together as a winning team on local markets.”
“Our openness to change,” Pesenti added, “has led us to anchor our industrial growth policy to a number of fundamental principles as the basis of putting into practice the integration of global and local that lies at the heart of our corporate identity.”

 


 

Thanking the speakers at the Congress, Giampiero Pesenti recalled the ties between Professor Stiglitz and Bergamo University, which has awarded the Nobel Laureate an Honoris Causa Degree. “This reflects a positive combination of outstanding qualities: the thought of a distinguished economist, his lively intellectual generosity and the spirit of initiative and modernity of our local community.”

 


 

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