B7 A MATERA, SOMMA: “EQUITA’ DI GENERE E’ ESIGENZA ETICA E PRIORITA’ ECONOMICA”

La riduzione dei divari, ancora profondi, di genere e di generazione è un’assoluta priorità dettata non solo da ragioni etiche ma anche di crescita economica e sociale.

I Paesi dove le donne partecipano più attivamente alla vita lavorativa, istituzionale, politica ed economica sono più evoluti e anche più avanzati. Lì dove le donne sono maggiormente coinvolte nei processi aziendali e dove le competenze sono adeguatamente riconosciute, valorizzate e retribuite, si registrano margini di ricavi maggiori.

È questo il messaggio emerso molto chiaramente dalla tappa materana della G7 Industry Stakeholders Conference “Bridging Gaps and Building Futures: Women, Youth, and Talent for Inclusive Growth”, a margine della Ministeriale G7 sulle Pari Opportunità di Matera. Si tratta di una delle tappe del B7 Italy 2024, la business community delle associazioni degli industriali dei sette Paesi più industrializzati che, nell’anno della guida italiana del G7, è guidata da Confindustria con la Presidenza di Emma Marcegaglia.

Alla presenza di Eugenia Roccella, Ministro della Famiglia, della Nascita e delle Pari Opportunità, Importanti amministratori delegati, rappresentanti di alto livello delle imprese del G7 e delle organizzazioni internazionali e multilaterali si sono riuniti al Cineteatro Guerrieri per un confronto sulle policy per sostenere il rafforzamento delle politiche attive del mercato del lavoro, promuovere l’imprenditorialità e lo sviluppo delle competenze, incoraggiare l’inclusione sociale dei gruppi sottorappresentati, in particolare donne e giovani.

Politiche di welfare, sostegno alla genitorialità, formazione, orientamento delle giovani donne verso le professioni più spendibili sul mercato del lavoro, sono alcuni dei temi trattati nel corso dei lavori, aperti dai saluti del Presidente di Confindustria Basilicata Francesco Somma e dalla Presidente Marcegaglia.

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Si riporta, di seguito, l’intervento del Presidente Somma:

Honorable Minister Roccella, dear President Marcegaglia, honorable Ministers, all the authorities, and my fellow entrepreneurs…

Welcome to Matera.

We are honoured to welcome you today to this place of universal importance, one that boasts unique, cultural, historic, artistic, and scenic wealth.

A World Heritage Site and a European Capital of Culture, Matera seduces us with its deep roots in age-old history and in the rock itself, with the strength of its authenticity, and with its stark beauty.

And it astounds us in its ability to express a perfect synthesis of two polar opposites:

Antiquity and innovation;

A whole world underground – and the highest-level research for space observation;

Cave homes – and experimental urban planning projects inspired by the visionary entrepreneur Adriano Olivetti;

A land devoted to grazing and farming – and a land that has developed industrial districts of the highest excellence, making Made in Italy a force on global markets;

A place once considered an embarrassment – and now the pride of Italy throughout the world.

Here, history has overcome geography, and resilience has defeated backwardness.

A socioeconomic model that has become a reference point for culture that generates social energy.

A sense of community, so decisive to being awarded the title of European Capital of Culture, has repaired faith in institutions.

The enthusiasm that turned a dream into reality has defeated the temptation to surrender to a destiny of always being last.

Matera is extraordinary not only for what it offers the eyes, but also for the symbolic value that it embodies: a metaphor for redemption, for a challenge won.

This evolution towards so exceptional a result has also seen the contribution of an entrepreneurial fabric that has quite often been a beacon of innovation.

The G7’s issues have raised a complex and, in certain ways, similar challenge for us, because it asks us to set our unexpressed potential free and to offer access to opportunities, in this case benefitting all individuals regardless of gender and generation.

It is an imperative that can no longer be avoided, in order finally to respond to an ethical call, to achieve a just affirmation of rights, and to create a new and needed economic and social energy.

We affirm this from a territory dangerously threatened by high unemployment and depopulation rates that affect young people and women above all, thus undermining the future at its very base.

These phenomena aggravate the dearth of services to people and families, and further fuel gender and pay gaps.

Today, these issues require a breadth of vision, precisely because they grapple with global economies that are anything but internally homogeneous.

Southern Italy suffers particularly from this, also due to the overall downscaling of the industrial apparatus. It is the great lesson of the Italian economist Pasquale Saraceno, that reminds us of the innovative and propulsive force of industrial culture. 

It is therefore urgent to establish a coordination among state policies that results in their overall realignment towards more advanced models.

Today, then, we are hosting the G7 Industry Stakeholders Conference dedicated to equal opportunity and inclusive growth, with the real hope that the battle to bridge gaps – between genders and generations, as well as between territories – is a battle that has been won.

Ours is a shared commitment to turn the page and to write a new history of emancipation.

A cultural emancipation, even before being an economic and social one.

I thank you for your attention and a special thanks to the authoritative panelists for their valuable contributions to this conference.