On Tuesday and Wednesday, 14 and 15 May, the Civil7 (C7) International Summit will take place in Rome at FAO Headquarters in the year of Italy’s G7 Presidency. The event is organised and coordinated by  GCAP Italy, the Italian Coalition Against Poverty that chair the C7 in 2024.

We are only six years away from 2030 and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the world is facing a number of critical structural and systemic challenges, with large population groups such as women, children, youth and the most marginalised bearing the brunt of the current polycrisis.

The cumulative impacts of climate change, economic shocks, the consequences of pandemics and the alarming increase in conflict and war have exacerbated already unacceptable social and economic inequalities. Gender inequalities are amplified, food security and even famine are increasing, fuelling forced migration and driving humanitarian needs to record levels. Prolonged public-private indebtedness is both a consequence and a further cause of the crisis. This complex situation, as an overall result, is slowing down and even reversing previous progress in leaving no one behind.

In this context, the G7 can be part of the problem, if it unilaterally promotes the interests of the most developed economies, or part of the solution, if it defends human rights and the common interests of humanity and the planet for a more peaceful, just, sustainable and secure future” – says Riccardo Moro, C7 Chair. “For these reasons, the Summit represents a crucial moment of confrontation and dialogue of the C7 with the G7 delegation, with the institutional world, with the representatives of the economic and financial world and with other national and international civil society actors,” Moro concludes.

More than 400 people from around the world are expected at the prestigious FAO headquarters for a two-day high-level meeting, both in terms of the depth of the topics to be covered and the depth of the speakers.

On Tuesday 14 May, after the greetings and welcome by video message from FAO Director-General QU Dongyu, the Summit will experience one of its most significant moments. In the first plenary session, C7 Chair Riccardo Moro and C7 Sherpa, Valeria Emmi will present and officially hand over the C7 Communiqué to G7 Sherpa, Ambassador Elisabetta Belloni. “The Communiqué is a report containing the C7 recommendations addressed to the G7 that have been collectively elaborated by the C7 Working Groups over the past months on different political priorities,” says Valeria Emmi. “It is a true manifesto that brings the excluded and the most vulnerable to the centre of the political debate and expresses the strong will of civil society, brought together in the C7, to play an active role and offer a concrete contribution to policy makers in addressing the protracted and growing crises we are experiencing, and the most urgent social, economic and environmental challenges of today and of the future“ – concludes Emmi.

The second session is dedicated to policy coherence for development with a panel of keynote speakers including Laura Aghilarre, Deputy Director-General for Development Cooperation at MAECI, Maurizio Martina, Deputy Director-General FAO and Marina Ponti, Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign. The two plenary sessions will be interspersed with four parallel sessions featuring sectoral experts from various continents who will explore the themes of conflict in the Middle East, human mobility and migration, food justice and gender equity.

On Wednesday 15 May, the proceedings will open with the third plenary session devoted to the international financial and fiscal architecture, which will feature, among other prestigious speakers, the Director General of the Fiscal and International Relations Directorate of the MEF, Marco Iuvinale, representing the Minister of Economy and Finance, and, by remote link, Geeta Sethi, Advisor and Global Lead for Food Systems of the World Bank, Katherine Baer, Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department, of the International Monetary Fund, Martin Fregene, Director of Agriculture and Agro-Industry of the African Development Bank, and Enrico Petrocelli, Head of International Institutional Relations of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.

On the mid-morning of the 15th, the four parallel sessions will take place, addressing the topics of climate justice, nuclear disarmament, humanitarian assistance and global health. The two days of work will conclude with the fourth plenary session during which the theme of peace will be addressed. A strong and important moment that will see the interventions of numerous civil society operators working for peace, that of Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference and Pope’s envoy for the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, to which the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Antonio Tajani has also been invited. The C7 Summit will finally close with the wishes of the Canadian civil society representative in view of the G7 and C7 presidencies in 2025.

The C7 Summit 2024 is an initiative supported by the UN SDG Action Campaign and is also supported with the contribution of the Unione Buddhista Italiana (UBI)

MEDIA KIT

Download the Agenda of the C7 Summit 2024

Download here the Zoom links to register and to follow the plenary and parallel sessions of the C7 Summit

to follow the plenary and parallel sessions of the C7 Summit 2024

Find here the biographies of the speakers who will attend the C7 Summit 2024

Download here the C7 Communiqué 2024 that will be officially handed over to the governing bodies

For further information, see the C7 website

C7 Chair and Sherpa and the coordinators of the C7 Working Groups are available for interviews and insights.

For information requests

Dario Lo Scalzo

Cell. + 349 38 95 415

communications@civil7.org