“Turin City Council,” announced Stefano Lo Russo, the city’s mayor, “has signed a framework agreement with Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo for the four-year period 2022-2025, thus bringing certainty to the city’s resourcing situation through a form of co-design. We are pleased to have sealed this multi-year agreement, not only because it gives us financial security in a number of key areas, but also because we are concurrently opening a new season of collaboration on projects in the sphere of Culture, People and Planet. Furthermore, by signing the Memorandum of Understanding alongside the launch of our four-year plan, we will be in a position to support the full range of initiatives for “Città dell’Educazione”, a project that we believe is vitally important because it is about building our future on solid foundations. This strengthens the City of Turin’s relationship with Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, with a view to creating ever more positive value for the whole community. The possibility of working in synergy with Compagnia di San Paolo is an important resource for Turin, and an example of how diverse entities can work together as a team and implement significant projects for the future of our city.”
Compagnia di San Paolo provides resources from its annual plan, up to a total of 64 million euros for the strategic framework covered by the Protocol for the four-year period 2022-2025, divided into four annual instalments of a maximum of 16 million euros. Additional resources, which cannot be defined in advance, may be provided under future funding decisions, with particular reference to calls for proposals issued by Compagnia (in which the Municipal Council can take part) and the major “città dell’educazione” project, which is currently being designed.
By signing the Framework Protocol, the Municipal Council and Compagnia di San Paolo intend to take coordinated action to identify specific programmes and initiatives designed to boost the strength and sustainability of processes and projects that cut across the Municipality’s organisational and management structure and relate to the areas of “Culture”, “People” and “Planet” that Compagnia has identified in its 2021-2024 Multi-Year Planning Document, in light of the United Nations Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals set down therein.
“Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo works as an agent of development with a view to strengthening, sharing and supporting municipal councils and alliances of municipal councils to improve their role as managers in strategies for change, in line with the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan,” explains Francesco Profumo, Chair of the Turin-based foundation. “From our point of view, the Framework Protocol represents a major leap forward: the strategic side of planning takes on a central role, and our driving ambition is to transcend the limitations of simply investing, as set out in our Strategic Plan 2021-2024, by aiming to multiply the impact of our investments and those of our beneficiary bodies. That’s why what we need most is the ability to work with local actors, with a view to long-term development. Both ours and theirs.”
Turin Municipal Council and Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo have teamed up to formulate, test and support intervention methods focused on structural priorities, especially in relation to the digital transition, the green transition, the social and educational transition and new administrative and management skills, on the basis of best practices designed to deliver long-term sustainability and/or efficiency. The partners’ aims also include studying, testing and modelling practices and operational approaches that maximise the efficiency and impact of the resources deployed, with particular reference to funds originating from national and European programmes.
“The Framework Protocol that we have signed today,” adds Alberto Anfossi, Secretary General of Compagnia di San Paolo, “is based on three strategic axes that encompass balanced continuous support for cultural institutions; boosting the value of the projects falling within the scope of the People Goal in particular (Education, Community and Inclusion), and defining and allocating strategic resources to support the structural reinforcement and the digital, environmental and social transition of the Municipality of Turin. Under the Framework Protocol, we are making 64 million euros available to the city for the four-year period 2022-2025 for strategic interventions, to be defined jointly between us. We are considering, for example, a major project geared towards the digital transition of the Municipality’s organisational machinery; initiatives for the benefit of co-governed cultural bodies such as the Fondazione Torino Musei, Fondazione Teatro Regio and Fondazione Teatro Stabile, to name but a few, and, lastly, projects for the benefit of co-governed urban agencies such as Urban Lab, aimed at supporting its development and strategic reorganisation, in the belief that taking joint action is the only way to multiply the results of our efforts and generate substantial benefits for the community and the common good.”
More specifically, the joint actions envisaged in the Protocol involve:
- strategic or “central” interventions implemented in co-designed form in conjunction with Turin Municipal Council that make effective use of the positive experiences of Compagnia di San Paolo and give priority to innovation in municipal services, the digital transition, the green transition, the social and educational transition and new administrative and management skills; combating poverty, promoting social and cultural inclusion, social housing and urban regeneration, educational activities and participation.
- Initiatives for the benefit of co-governed cultural bodies, such as: Fondazione Torino Musei, Museo Nazionale del Cinema – Fondazione Maria Adriana Prolo, Fondazione Teatro Regio di Torino, Fondazione Teatro Stabile di Torino. These could be backed up by further cultural interventions agreed between the parties in writing, and projects aimed at the development and strategic reorganisation of co-governed Turin-based urban agencies such as: Associazione Urban Lab, Fondazione Contrada Torino, The Gate – Comitato Porta Palazzo;
- lastly, the launch of a major multi-year programme known as the “città dell’educazione”, one of the focal points of which will be the city of Turin.
The Framework Protocol is also designed to provide a guidance structure, especially at the strategic level relating to governance and resource allocation, for the multi-annual “città dell’educazione” programme, due for launch in 2023.
“The quality of the change that we will achieve in the years to come will depend first and foremost on our ability to strike new balances and unleash fresh energies, both as individuals and as communities, in harmony with the major transformations, by assigning a key role to what I see as the challenge of education, which starts from young people but involves everyone, because life-long learning is something we all need to embrace. I am in no doubt that education and training are the most powerful form of social inclusion. And this not only applies to our children and young people, it also applies to the world of work. The continuous learning and updating of skills is becoming a necessity,” explains Francesco Profumo. “Over the course of the next five years, the major programme entitled “città dell’educazione” will see the development of three macro-interventions in the field of combating the fall in birth rates, and the care and education of children aged 0 to 6; promoting educational and training opportunities for children and young people aged 6 to 16 years; and reducing the number of “NEETs” in the Turin area, in close collaboration with the Turin City Council and other institutions and stakeholders. The extent of the commitment and additional resources we provide for this programme,” concludes Profumo “has the potential to bring major changes and major benefits for the cities concerned, especially for children and young people, with the ultimate goal of building a truly educational city, with a strong emphasis on inclusion, innovation and sustainability.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_class=”sdg-list-wrap”][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]