Programme

Friday October 17

Workshop 1

3.00 p.m.

The 2015 Millennium Development Goal: paths and scenarios of economic emancipation

In today’s world, some 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day; there are 852 million chronically undernourished people and 5 million children below the age of 5 years who die every year of malnutrition. These are figures that the media have accustomed us to hearing. Halving extreme poverty by 2015 was the gauntlet thrown down by the UN at the start of the new millennium, along with another 7 specific goals such as achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, and improving maternal health. Is the goal of eradicating extreme poverty a utopia or a feasible proposition? The road to achieving the Millennium Development Goals is still a long one, and some people think it is too long....continue

Special Evening Event

9.00 p.m.

The riches of poverty: thoughts, words, images and stories

Privileged witnesses, disenchanted observers and passionate journalists recount their experiences in contact with destitution and poverty....continue

Saturday October 18

Workshop 2

9.00 a.m.

From the flexibility of labour to the precarious insecurity of life

The demand for an ever increasing flexibility of employment, variously combined with forms of deregulation of work services rendered, has been broken down, reorganised and redistributed throughout the world on a global scale. Flexibility of labour is generally regarded as the only possible response to the increasingly sharp-edged world competitiveness....continue

Workshop 3

3.00 p.m.

Equity and prosperity: escaping from the vicious circle of inequality

According to the indices of the World Bank, mankind has never before experienced a phase of such explosive generation of prosperity in areas once marked by grinding poverty. India and China are the standard bearers of this impetuous change. In parallel with this, never before have such situations of absolute poverty and exclusion from development opportunities come about for hundreds of millions of the Earth’s inhabitants. In vast regions of Sub-Saharan Africa people are struggling for survival every day of their lives....continue

Sunday October 19

10.00 a.m.

Plenary Session

Representatives of international organisations and personalities of the world of culture, economics and political institutions, in plenary session, address the theme of poverty. Eminent figures who have distinguished themselves in the field of international solidarity and for their contribution to social progress, will be awarded medals of the Italian State on this occasion. From 10.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m. RAI-Italian Television Service will broadcast live on Channel 2 a special feature on the Conference....continue

Workshop 4

3.30 p.m.

The ‘low-cost’ neoconsumer: neo-affluence and neo-barter

There is widespread, growing poverty also in the well-to-do West, which governments and decision-makers are now obliged to keep a new watchful eye on. A barometer of this phenomenon is provided not only by the quantity but also by the quality of consumption....continue

The general secretariat of Damascus 2008 Arab Capital of Culture presents:

9.15 p.m.
Palacongressi Auditorium, Rimini

A Syrian-Italian Concert

Monday October 20

Workshop 5

9.00 a.m.

Development and poverty: does poverty engender violence?

The relationship between violence and the condition of economic privation should not be taken for granted. The simplification of economic reductionism whereby poverty is in itself a generator of conflict is belied by history....continue