This morning in the Holy See Press Office Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, along with the ambassador of Italy to the Holy See, Daniele Mancini, and Professor Giuliano Amato, former prime minister of Italy and president of the “Courtyard of the Gentiles” Foundation, presented the congress “Towards a more humane and just world. A new inclusive economic paradigm in the context of growing inequalities”, to be held in Palazzo Borromeo, Rome on 21 September 2016.

The event, organised by the Italian embassy to the Holy See and the Pontifical Council for Culture as part of the initiatives promoted by the “Courtyard of the Gentiles”, will be attended by the 2015 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Angus Deaton, professor of the University of Princeton, U.S.A.; the French economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi, professor at the LUISS University, Italy, and the Belgian economist Dominique Van der Mensbrugghe, professor at Purdue University, U.S.A.

The organisers explained that “the theme chosen for the conference is intended to stimulate reflection on a key question in current political and academic debate, and about which public opinion is increasingly sensitive: the relationship between economics and society, and the need to define new, more humane and inclusive economic models”.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) data show that, at global level, between 1990 and 2015 the level of poverty in families has reduced by more than two thirds, and in absolute terms, the number of people living below the extreme poverty line has reduced from 1.9 billion to 836 million; the level of infant mortality has more than halved; and 2.6 billion more people have access to a source of drinking water, even though the population has grown from 5.3 to 7.3 billion, say the organisers of the congress.

Again according to UNDP, almost 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger, and live on less than two dollars per day; around 80 per cent of the global population has access to just 6 per cent of available health care and more than 50 per cent of global wealth is possessed by one per cent of the population. High- and low-income countries are equally vulnerable to problems caused by inequality.

For further information, see: cortiledeigentili.com

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