The second meeting of The Aspen Institute “Food Security Strategy Group” was held in Rome between February 5-7, 2014, and saw the participation of entrepreneurs from the agro-food sector, experts, development practitioners, representatives from international organizations, and political leaders.
Education, welfare and the gender gap were at the top of the agenda of discussions at this international roundtable, which featured guest speaker Khalid Malik, Director of the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office. The Office’s 2014 report sets out to measure progress in long-term human development against three main areas of achievement: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Also taken into account are the capacity to enjoy equal opportunity of access, and to exercise the universal right to the same opportunities in life.
This National Conference got underway with the observation that, in Italy as in Europe, emerging forms of poverty have mainly affected segments of the population that were previously relatively protected but that have now become socially and economically vulnerable. This phenomenon has also been accompanied by the onset of other hardships, stemming from the intensification of migration flows.
The 8th Annual Conference of the Aspen Junior Fellows addressed the issue of solidarity at a time when the global crisis is widening social gaps. Indeed, imbalances in the concentration of global wealth and poverty are increasing, no longer merely signaling economic disparity but also a geopolitical – as well as a moral – differential that is impacting more and more on our future and on the carrying capacity of our planet.
As a concept, fraternity, the most obscure of the three words in the French revolutionary motto, has been sidelined for some considerable time, but today, the notion of solidarity that it represents is one that is giving many of us food for thought. At a time when we have reached a historical and cultural crossroads marked by an obvious global economic crisis that many believe has triggered the huge identity crisis that western society is currently experiencing, it is also providing the rationale behind some very real political proposals aimed at resolving the situation.
