Giovanna Melandri

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Giovanna Melandri (born 28 January 1962) is an Italian-American politician and expert in cultural policy. She was a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2012. During her tenure, she held cabinet roles including Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities from 1998 to 2001 and Minister for Youth Policies and Sport from 2006 to 2008. From 2008 to 2012, she was president of the MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome. She has also served as chair of the Human Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on social innovation

Early life and education

Born in New York City in 1962, Melandri earned a degree in political economy at the Sapienza University of Rome.

Career

From 1983 to 1987, Melandri coordinated the working group on industrial and technological policies at Montedison. She managed international relations for Legambiente, an Italian environmentalist association. She participated in the Bergen Conference on Sustainable Development in 1990 and was a member of the Italian delegation to the UN Rio Summit in 1992. In 1991, she joined the national secretariat for the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), which became the Democrats of the Left (DS) in 1998. Between 1998 and 2001, Melandri served as Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities in the Centre-left coalition governments led by Massimo D'Alema and Giuliano Amato. Between 24 September 2001 and 31 December 2005, she was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. On 17 May 2006, she was appointed Minister for Youth Policies and Sport in the second Prodi government. She joined the Democratic Party (PD), the legal successor of the DS, in 2007. First elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1994 with the PDS and DS, she was re-elected as a member of the PD in 2008 and 2013.

Institutional activities

From 1992 to 2013, Melandri held leadership roles within the PDS/DS/PD. During the Legislature XII of Italy (1994–1996), she served on the Foreign Affairs Committee and chaired the Committee for Human Rights. She was also a member of the Childhood Special Committee and contributed to legislative efforts addressing sexual violence. Melandri helped form the parliamentary intergroup on bioethics, coordinating it for two years and focusing on topics such as artificial reproduction, cloning, and living wills.

In the Legislature XIII of Italy (1996–1998), she was a member of the Culture Committee before she was appointed Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities. She proposed several bills concerning adoptions, bioethics, assisted reproduction technology, and the prohibition of extradition to countries that practice the death penalty. Melandri also proposed bills on publishing, telecommunications, and public broadcasting. She represented Italy on the parliamentary delegation to the first World Forum on Television, organized by the United Nations in November 1997. From 1998 to 2001 she served as Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities. During her tenure, public funding for Italian cultural policies reached over €3 billion and tax incentives for cultural investment were introduced. Cultural restoration sites were completed, and policies for contemporary art and architecture were initiated. A national bill establishing MAXXI was passed. In 1999, jointly with then World Bank president James Wolfensohn and First Lady Hillary Clinton, she promoted the international forum "Culture Counts: Financing Resources and the Economics of Culture and Sustainable Development" in Florence. In 2000, she was invited by United States President Bill Clinton as the European representative to the "White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy".

In the Legislature XIV of Italy (2001–2006), Melandri was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Italian Parliamentary Delegation at the Council of Europe and the Western European Union, and the Parliamentary Supervisory Board on RAI, the national broadcasting TV. She proposed bills on cinema, the promotion of books and reading, and the protection and promotion of cultural heritage. In the Legislature XV of Italy (2006–2008), she was appointed Minister for Youth Policies and Sport. In this capacity, she launched the program "Young Ideas Change Italy" (Giovani idee cambiano l'Italia) to support entrepreneurial ideas by people under 30; she also launched the agreement with the Associazione Bancaria Italiana for the program "Let's Give Credit" (Diamogli credito); she established two new funds, one for youth policies, and one for "sport for all". In agreement with Giuliano Amato, then Minister of the Interior, she established the first Young Committee for Interreligious Dialogue. In 2005, she participated in the Alliance for Civilization promoted by then-Spanish and Turkish prime ministers José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the Legislature XVI of Italy (2008–2012), she was a member of the VII Committee on Culture, Education, and Science, and was reelected as a member of the Supervisory Board of the RAI.

Other activities

• In 2024, Melandri joined the board of directors of Kering, a global luxury group.

Honors and awards

• Honorary Dame Commander of the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire (UK, 2000)
• Officer of the Legion of Honour (France, 2003; returned in 2020)

External links

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