Giovanni Mazzacani, 23, is young Italian who recently finished an internship at United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. He is studying a double degree on International Management at the Bocconi University, Milan, which included studying an academic year at the Fudan University in Shanghai.  Giovanni has spent three months working in the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which is an organ of the United Nations; in particular they work in development countries with a particular focus in Africa.

He was invited to the Navarra Center for International Development to present at a special Junior Seminar about his experience at the UN and his contribution to their research. His presentation was titled: “Rethinking trade and poverty” and around 12 undergraduate of the University of Navarra attended the session.

“My purpose tonight is first of all since I will be meeting undergraduate students I want to  show them a little bit more about the UN family and UNCTAD in particular,” said Giovanni and added: “I will talk about the relationship between trade and poverty. The question tonight will be: ‘is there a way to reduce poverty through trade?’”. 

During his presentation he explained how over the past 20 years Asian countries such as China, South Korea and Singapore have been adopting an export oriented strategy. “Thanks to these increase number of exports their economies were able to grow”, he explained.  “On the other side Argentina is the most important case of an inward oriented strategy”.  This South American country “closed” their borders and tries to be self-sufficient by reducing exports. “Now is recovering and they learned that they made a mistake,” said Giovanni.

Giovanni is convinced of the need to work in the field of development. “I think young people have the passion and the strength to change the world and to improve the situation if many people in Africa,” he said.