Rome, Sub-Saharan Africa. National structural issues in the never ending “questione meridionale”  
by Matteo Bocci 
Exactly two years ago I was in Kenya for a meeting with some colleagues. After a few bottles of local beer, a clever lady from Zimbabwe finally took the courage and asked me: “how comes you Italians are not even capable of managing urban waste?” That remark sounded particularly embarrassing to me, as in those days two issues apparently were spreading in newspapers worldwide [...]

The Politics and Economics oh Happiness: a new approach to existing problems

What should societies – and policy makers – look for? Is “progress” still a valid notion towards which science and economy should be oriented? Can happiness be an effective alternative to GDP when it comes to measuring quantity of well being and the fairness of its distribution? These are some of the basic questions at the basis of Vision's new project.

Events

On February the 12th, in Birmingham, Vision took part to the English follow up of "The B Factor". Click here to watch the conference.

We Want You!

Would you like to be part of Vision’s network? Please send an email to: info@vision-forum.org

Next Issue

Within the next issue of Vision’s web magazine we will focus on communication technologies, and the way social networks in particular are changing the relationship among people and the concept of “Democracy” itself. You can write to info@vision-forum.org should you like to write an article or know more.

University performance in the 21st century
Next event on University is planned to be held on 2010 October 18th, in Turin. Last April conference produced very good results both in terms of media coverage (here you can see Vision’s press coverage ) and products (you can download the paper here). You can send an email to university@vision-forum.org, should you like to take part to the project.

Intelligent Cities in the Post Copenhagen Era
After the launching, “framework” conference held in Naples last April, the project “Kyoto of the Cities” continues its activities. Following next is the conference focusing on the first of the three areas of intervention that Vision identified in order to tackle the problem of Climate Change: “Intelligent Cities” and the issue of Public Participation as a solution to the urban congestion. [...]
  

Vision in Facebook

Now you can join the Vision Group on facebook and be constantly updated in real time on all projects and initiatives underway. The facebook group is "Vision - The Italian Think Tank".

If you want to join Vision’s projects or be author of Vision web magazine write to: info@vision-forum.org.

Africa, Happiness, Italy from outside

Within this issue we analyze the question of Africa, questioning the concept that transferring resources to less developed areas is useful for them, or to broader and inter-connected surrounding systems. The western debates on the future of Africa have been focused on “aid” for years, but recently new theories have been gaining popularity, some arguing that aid could even be damaging for example.  
The questions are: how can we transfer “capacities” together with resources? Is there any sense for one “model” to still exist, or would it be better to encourage diversity? Which structural rigidities do we need to combat in order to make the change more effective? Which potential role does culture play within these processes? How could we transform the concept of “aid” into development opportunities, also for more advanced societies? 

We also release the new version of the position paper of the project on "The politics and economics of happiness". The evidence and the questions of the paper will be discussed at the event to be held in Rome on May 13th and organized by the British Council and Vision in partnership with the American Embassy, the UK Embassy, the Canadian Embassy, Rena, TN2020. Whoever is interested to the Vision project can write to milica.cirovic@vision-forum.org.  

We also propose two articles on Italy from an external point of view - by Bill Emmott and Geoff Andrews.
 
In the next issue we will focus on communication technologies, and the way social networks (such as facebook) in particular are changing relationships among people, societies, and the concept of Democracy itself. You can write an email to info@vision-forum.org should you like to contribute with an article.