From
March 2001 to April 2004 he was Director
at Lunaria,
NGO working in the field of voluntary action and international
solidarity.
There he was also research
coordinator at
Sbilanciamoci!, a
civil-society campaign involving 46 associations, NGOs and networks
working on globalisation, peace, human rights, environment, fair
trade, ethical finance. Since 2000 Sbilanciamoci! has proposed
alternatives to the Italian budgetary policies, arguing for social
and environmental priorities. Sbilanciamoci! publishes yearly
reports, meets policy makers, organizes conferences to promote a
different use of public resources and new role of public actors in
the economy.
Sbilanciamoci!
invented and developed the Regional Quality Of Development Index
(QUARS). The QUARS is an alternative indicator of regional quality of
development to be proposed to Local Authorities for the definition of
policies. The QUARS
is a synthetic index
that takes into account different dimensions of development at
regional level: environment (mobility, renewable energies, recycling,
agriculture, pollution); labour (quality and quantity of employment);
gender (political and economic participation); welfare (health,
education, assistance); democratic participation (vote, volunteers,
associations, migrant’s enterprises); inclusion (services for
disabled, migrants and elder, poverty, young unemployment); economy
(investments, cooperatives, innovation, organic production,
certification). The average of the results obtained by each dimension
is used to calculate the QUARS. Public expenditure on social and
environmental aspects is then compared to the index in order to
evaluate the effectiveness of implemented policies.