CeSPI - Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale

Over the years CeSPI developed an internationally-acknowledged expertise on International Migrations, centred on five main dimensions: migrations’ root causes; migration and development nexus; migration policies (at the EU, Italian and sub-national level of government); financial inclusion, social and economic integration of migrants; monitoring of the reception and integration process. This allowed CeSPI to establish positive relations with diaspora organizations of various migrant communities all over Italy and with interested stakeholders participating in the projects. Recent projects include:
The website www.mandasoldiacasa.it, managed by CeSPI since 2009, compares the costs for migrants living in Italy of sending remittances to their origin countries. It is the first national website on remittance costs comparison certified by the World Bank and it represents a best practice at international level. CeSPI is also part of the Italian component of the G8 Global Remittance Working Group, coordinated by the World Bank, aimed at achieving the 5x5 Objective (reduction of 5% in 5 years of the costs of sending remittances) endorsed by the L’Aquila G8 Summit of 2009 and the Cannes G20 Summit of 2011. Within the G8 CeSPi launched mandasoldiacasa.it, online since 2009, which is visited by a yearly average of 26.500 persons/migrants. 
The National Observatory for the Financial Inclusion of Third-Party Nationals. Analysis and Monitoring of the Relationships between Migrants and Financial Institutions. Carried out by CeSPI since 2012 in partnership with the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Italian Banking Association (ABI), the Observatory is the first of its kind in Italy and Europe and it became a hub for the ongoing structured analysis – thanks to data directly fed by financial operators - and monitoring of the financial inclusion process of immigrants in Italy, a key aspect for their full integration. It provides institutions (at national and local/territorial level) and financial operators with different tools aimed at identifying and defining integrated strategies for strengthening and furthering the financial and economic inclusion of migrants. A key research line focuses on migrants business/entrepreneurial models. One of the Observatory’s main component is education and training: it promotes nationwide financial education campaigns (for instance in collaboration with ILO – International Labour Organization) and an ongoing dialogue with migrant communities. Two Territorial Labs have been established in Rome and Milan gathering all main stakeholders dealing with economic/financial inclusion of migrants. The output is a yearly Report (now at its sixth edition), reports on specific issues and financial education tools.
EMN - European Migration Network (2017-2018): CeSPI currently produces studies on Migrants’ financial inclusion, remittances and co-development for the Italian Contact Point.
Another key focus is Capitalization and Capacity Building. CeSPI cooperates with migrants’ associations and public administrations and institutions in different projects aimed at strengthening the former’s capacities for integration and the latter’s competences and facilitate positive synergies towards co-development.
Since its inception CeSPI has been developing a fruitful dialogue with CSOs and NGOs with which it has implemented a number of projects centred on sustainable development, migrants integration and support to capacity building, local development, cross-border cooperation.
The Centre is also engaged in training, as Convener of the International Doctoral School on Sustainable Development: a consortium of +40 academic and doctoral schools from 25 countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Italian partners (CeSPI, the Universities of Roma 3, Salerno, Florence and Pisa) propose three PhD programs and research themes on Economics and Statistics, International relations and Political sciences, and Engineering, Energetics and Sustainability, offering research scholarships and individual mentoring. In addition, activities of migrants’ training and capacity building include such aspects as: institutional empowerment for migrant associations (vision, mission, governance etc); Project Cycle Management; budgeting and communication. A key focus is dedicated to capacity building in the financial and economic sphere for migrants (financial literacy; financial products and services; family budgeting and business planning for entrepreneurs, ect). CeSPI started a collaboration with ILO (International Labour Organization) to promote ToT (Training of Trainers) programs among migrant communities.