President Mattarella, Governor Visco, Mayor Brugnaro; Professors Lippiello and La Malfa; Commissioner Gentiloni; all of you who have come here today: I am deeply grateful for your presence and for the honor of being the first recipient of the Ugo la Malfa Prize for International Cooperation from the Università Ca Foscari Venezia, the Enciclopedia Treccani, and the Fondazione Ugo La Malfa. I will cherish it and will work hard to serve our family of nations so as to be worthy of it.

Dear Ignazio, your meticulous laudatio deeply touched me. Grazie di cuore!

May I add to it a tribute to the person whose life we celebrate through this prize:

Ugo La Malfa: pioneer in the post-war Italian reconstruction and economic miracle. Parliamentarian from 1946 to 1979. Minister of transport, minister of foreign trade, minister of budget and the treasury, deputy prime minister. European visionary, having helped guide Italy into the EU.

And, during our earliest years, a respected figure in the IMF’s highest governing body—our Board of Governors—appointed as Italy’s very first alternate governor in 1947, renewed twice, serving until 1959.

To receive this prize in his name in this beautiful and historic city—a monument to international trade and cooperation—is a proud and unforgettable moment.

***

My brief remarks today tell the story of global economic cooperation since World War II, weaving in my own experiences—experiences that have made me an unwavering optimist.

***

Let me start in 1947—the year Ugo La Malfa joined our Board of Governors.

In 1947, the world was—how to say it simply—the world was a mess. Europe sat in the rubble of total war. Former allies were already pointing their guns at each other. Women, girls, and old men—so many of the young men were dead—lifted broken bricks by hand. In Italy, widespread devastation, including of priceless cultural sites. In Japan, cities reduced to ash. In India, partition. In China and elsewhere, hunger. Almost everywhere, millions of displaced people on the move.

And yet, three years earlier, as the Western Allies fought their way out of Normandy, as the Red Army waged vast battles in the east, and as the Nazi holocaust reached its terrible climax, a group of statesmen met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to craft a new global economic order. Great economic progress would result.

Given the positive outcomes, it is doubly regrettable that, for the first 45 years, a large section of the globe—the Soviet bloc—would remain outside the Bretton Woods system. A world divided.

Step one in my life—Bulgaria.

Back in the 1950s, as Italy grew by 7 percent a year, I was a child growing up in the communist world. Looking back, and knowing what I know now, it was a cold place. Not everything was bad—education was free, women could study and work, there was basic healthcare—but, overall, life on the other side of the........

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