REBUILDING FROM THE BOTTOM UP: Civic engagement and regional government in responding to COVID-19

Around the world governments' responses to the global pandemic have been diverse, reflecting different state capabilities, governance structures and their readiness. While central government responses are critical in securing macroeconomic conditions and jobs through the storm, a variety of approaches at the local and regional levels have also emerged. We have seen different solutions experimented across places in response to both the immediate health crisis and the need for a quick recovery. Municipalities, councils and regional governments play a key role in providing and experimenting tailored policies, rebuilding the socio-economic fabric from the bottom-up, and stimulating civic engagement. This talk will engage policy leaders at the forefront of the crisis and discuss how to coordinate multi-level government responses towards a just transition and recovery.

SPEAKERS:

Elly Schlein
Vice President of Emilia-Romagna (@ellyesse)
Elly Schlein has been hailed as a rising star of the Italian left. She was recently appointed Vice President of Emilia-Romagna by President Stefano Bonaccini, having played a major role in mobilising against the far-right push in the 2020 regional election. She is working towards the implementation of a “Green New Deal” agenda in Emilia-Romagna. Previously, she was a Member of the European Parliament where she served on the Committee on Development (DEVE), the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM). Before entering politics herself, she was involved in both presidential campaigns of Barack Obama. She has had a longstanding interest in issues surrounding migration and worked on the documentary Anija-La Nave (winner of 2013 David di Donatello Award) telling the story of the mass escape of Albanians to Italy in the 1990s.


Georgia Gould
Leader of Camden London Borough Council and Deputy Leader of London Councils (@Georgia Gould)
Georgia Gould was elected a Labour councillor on Camden Council in 2010 at the age of 24, becoming Leader in 2017. She’s made tackling injustice and inequality of wealth, income and influence the focus of the Council’s work. Making citizen power and participation a priority, the Council held the country’s first Climate Emergency Citizens Assembly in 2019, putting restorative, relational and person-centred practice at the heart of social services. The Council is setting up a Renewal Commission (with IIPP) recognising the need for a reset of our socio-economic settlement in the light of Covid-19. Georgia is Deputy Chair of London Councils, Chair of the Central London Forward Employment and Skills Board, co-chair of the Skills for London Taskforce and a member of both the London European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) Committee and the London Economic Action Partnership (LEAP) Board. She is also author of Wasted: How Misunderstanding Young Britain Threatens Our Future.

CHAIR:
Mariana Mazzucato
Professor in the Economics of Innovation & Public Value and Director at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (@MazzucatoM)

Mariana Mazzucato is one of the most significant contemporary economists. She has pioneered new thinking on the public-private relationship and directionality of innovation, leading to policy agendas such as the EU’s mission-oriented agenda for innovative, green and inclusive growth. Her highly-acclaimed book The Entrepreneurial State (2013) changed the debate on the role of the public sector by highlighting its historical importance in transformative innovations. In The Value of Everything (2018), she developed these arguments to bring value theory back into focus so that we can reward value creation not value extraction. Mariana advises local, regional and national governments and international organisations across the world, including in their responses to COVID-19. In recognition of her academic contribution, she received the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought and the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values.