400 administrators, citizens, economists, experts and professionals from all over the world will meet at Castel Gandolfo, Rome, from 17 to 20 January 2019 for four days of discussion and study on urban management, networking and models of sustainability and living together. Among the experts and protagonists that will participate in this conference and share their thought and experience in a “post-democratic” era, one finds Emilce Cuda, a politologist from Argentina well-versed in Pope Francis’ thought, the Hon. Sunggon Kim (김성곤), Buddhist, former General Secretary of the Korean National Assembly, Ximena Samper, an architect from Colombia and the Hon. Ghassan Mukheiber from Lebanon, Chairman of the Arab Region Parliamentarians Against Corruption. The Mayor of Katowice, Poland, where the COP 24 has just taken place, Angel Miret, coordinator of the operational committee for refugees in Catalonia and Izzedin Elzir, the President of the Islamic Community in Florence and Tuscany are also expected to participate. Urban management has always been a complex task, but today it is even more so. It needs to answer to a continuously changing society, that faces local and global problems and is conditioned by an uncontrollable technological development that causes the risk of great economical chasms and unprecedented areas of new poverty. Decisions need to be taken today, but these determine the future. Cities have a very strong strategical, political and cultural importance; they are “home” for more than half the world’s population (source UN), and this is not a free choice but it is often linked to lack of food and work. In this era dominated by sovereignities, cities are becoming real social hubs with an endless number of connections: civil, political, anthropological, economical, communicative. They express a new identity model, marked not by exasperating localism or nationalism, but by participation and sharing in the same common affair, as we all belong to the same human family, even before we participate in it. Co-Governance is being organized by “New Humanity Movement”, “Movement for Politics & Policy for Unity” and “Associazione Città per la Fraternità”. For further information: www.co-governance.org

Stefania Tanesini