The New York Summit? For Prodi it doesn’t exist

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. This saying couldn’t be more true of Romano Prodi who landed in Brussels two days ago to participate in an international conference on security and development in Africa, organised by the European Security and Defence Assembly/ Assembly of WEU, an institution composed of representatives from national parliaments in the Western European Union.

Acting as President of the joint AU-UN panel aimed at enhancing peacekeeping operations in Africa, the former Italian Prime Minister was the guest of honour at an event that brought together prominent figures (at least for those who are interested in the African continent), the most important being Jean Ping. The Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union – who could be defined as the African alter ego of José Manuel Barroso – has spoken at length about the challenges facing Africa in terms of peace, security and development.

In his speeches, Ping brought attention to the importance of the High Level Summit that in just a few days will reunite in New York all world leaders to assess progress made on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) agreed upon in 2000 by 189 heads of state and governments to halve world poverty by 2015.

For the United Nations (UN), the organisation with which Prodi has been collaborating since 2008, this will be the most important event of 2010 if not of the last several years. The same goes for civil society in both the Northern and Southern hemisphere that over the past several months have been launching diverse awareness campaigns to pressure world leaders to respect commitments made 10 years back. Even the media that up until recently has been rather ungenerous with news coverage on the MDGs has taken up the cause and published several summaries of results towards the MDGs by the international community. Much attention was also given to the call launched a few days ago by the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, to save the MDGs. To conclude, anyone familiar with the milieu knows that the New York Summit plays a key role in raising 1.4 billion human beings out of poverty. Everyone but Romano Prodi.

At the end of the conference on peace and security in Brussels Vita.it (VITAeurope’s parent company) approached the professor to ask him his opinion on the Summit being hosted by his employer. For the ex Italian Prime Minister the question should have been easy. But it wasn’t. Instead of answers the professor asked questions, the next more sensational than the last. “A Summit on the MDGs?…In New York? …When?…In a few days?…I’ve never heard of it”

Never heard of it. These words, said by the President of a UN group working on peace and security in Africa, a continent afflicted by poverty, have a certain effect. Maybe it is best just to turn a blind eye and continue to pretend that Italy is one of the most respected countries in the international community.