AVSI Secretary General Giampaolo Silvestri attended the next-to-last General Assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the intergovernmental organization that manages universal exhibitions, to support the choice of Rome for Expo 2030 by highlighting the experience of the Italian Cooperation.
Silvestri and other distinguished guests were part of the delegation that went to Paris with Giorgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister, to illustrate Rome's application in front of the BIE delegates. In November, their final vote will decide which city will host Expo 2030.
Following the video launch of the project and the endorsement of the actor Russel Crowe as Rome’s Ambassador to the world, the speakers were: Carlo Ratti - architect, Meheret Tewolde - CEO Italia Africa Business Week, Giampaolo Silvestri – AVSI Secretary General and Samantha Cristoforetti - astronaut at the European Space Agency.
The closing speech was given by the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
In his speech, Silvestri testified, through the experience of AVSI, the value of the Italian Cooperation:
“The history of Italian cooperation - explained Silvestri - began 60 years ago, and it’s a story made up of thousands of successful projects that keep at their center the human dignity of every single person. Every year, Italy allocates 6 billion dollars to reach millions of people. But numbers are not enough to explain the value of the Italian Cooperation: at the heart of every project are the needs, desires and rights of every human being".
The Italian cooperation represents an entire country, its international relationships and partnerships: its civil society, local administration, universities, the private sector, small and medium-sized enterprises, the diaspora in Italy.
“What we call the multistakeholder approach - added Silvestri - is the true added value of the Italian cooperation, because our future is your future. This is the heart of the new vision introduced by the Mattei Plan that Italy is about to launch, a plan that starts from best practices in the development cooperation sector and aims to scale them up".
The streaming of the event
There’s a whole country cooperating for this and the EXPO 2030 does not come from nothing, it is the natural development of these 60 years of development cooperation. We look forward to seeing you in Rome.
Giampaolo Silvestri, Secretary General of AVSI,at the general assembly of the BIE, 20 June 2023
Who will host EXPO2030?
There are three candidate cities: in addition to Rome, there are Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Busan in South Korea. Each one had 20 minutes to present their project before the general assembly of the BIE, which will communicate its final decision on November 28th. Each one of the over 170-member countries of the BIE has the right to vote.