This morning I received this extra-ordinary email from my colleague Prof Lorenzo Fioramonti who has up until now headed up the Centre for Governance Innovation at Pretoria University:

“Dear WE-Africans:

as many of you will have seen through social networks and mainstream media, I have just been elected to parliament in Italy, where I’ve just relocated (my family will follow in July). I’m now also running for the post of Minister of Economic Development on a post-GDP ‘wellbeing’ political agenda, which is becoming massively mainstream. It is incredible how fast our ideas are gaining ground and the party I have been running with, the 5 Star Movement, has fully endorsed my vision of a wellbeing economy as opposed to the conventional growth-centric model. With such a policy programme, we have won 33% of the votes and have become Europe’s largest party, on par with Angela Merkel’s.

I will be on leave from UP until 2020 and then we’ll see what happens. I think that the success of our ideas is evidence that we need to keep pushing for a radical shift all over the world, especially in Africa.

A big hug,

L.”