STRATEGIZING by Emanuele Sacerdote
After learning that the Interministerial Committee for European Affairs (CIAE) has collected 600 projects to spend the money from the Recovery Fund, I had the feeling that an important first step was missing, but I could be wrong.
At the basis of my reasoning is the thought that first of all it would be necessary to define the rules of engagement, ie the preconditions, directives, circumstances and constraints for planning the intervention and the action.
School, healthcare, technology, environment, etc. they are macro themes but the fundamental objective should be to decide which are the most priority projects with the best possible result and return on investment for the population, the citizenry, the nation.
Quite simply, if the goal is to select the best and most effective projects conceivable, I believe that the approach to investing in Impact Investing could be the most appropriate and consistent.
Impact Investing is a rapidly growing sector (Third Sector) which invests and implements virtuous value creation programs and/or projects that have the dual objective of positive social benefit (environment, community) and economic advantage (profit, work) .
“Impact investments therefore have the primary objective of creating a social and/or environmental impact, which is associated with a financial income; therefore, they make capital available to social enterprises employed to generate both a measurable social impact and a financial return. Note how the word "impact" assumes, when used in this context, an exclusively positive character, contrary to what happens in the current use of the word in Italian, which includes both the positive meaning and the negative. “Pierre P., Philanthropy, AIPB, 2019
I think the satisfaction of the best social growth and real economic growth with low energy impact can also work for the allocation of European funds. The Impact Investing approach could become the method for selecting and evaluating the most useful and most virtuous programs and projects by defining a measurement system based on the real achievable value and impact: the programs and projects that show the highest scores win.
However, there is always something "relevant", however in strategic issues, at the basis of this taxonomic method of evaluation there must be a change of culture and mentality that imposes new rules of engagement that assume selection processes guided by greater transparency, objectivity, measurability and meritocracy.
All the Best!
cover image by Gilbert Garcin
