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Meloni declared the summit a successful first step, and top European and United Nations officials said the Italian plan, with an initial endowment of 5.5 billion euros (US$5.95 billion), would complement initiatives already underway focusing on climate adaptation and clean energy development in Africa.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni recently unveiled Italy’s big development plan for Africa at a summit of the continent’s leaders, aiming to stem the numbers of migrants, diversify sources of energy, and forge a new, non-predatory relationship between Europe and Africa. The plan is named after Enrico Mattei, who back in 1951 said that Italy should have a massive development plan for Northern Africa to improve the living standards of the people there.
Meloni declared the summit a successful first step, and top European and United Nations officials said the Italian plan, with an initial endowment of 5.5 billion euros (US$5.95 billion), would complement initiatives already underway focusing on climate adaptation and clean energy development in Africa.
But the African Union Commission was more cautious, telling the summit that African countries would have liked to have been consulted beforehand and didn’t want more empty pledges.
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The government’s plan, named after Enrico Mattei, founder of state-controlled oil and gas company Eni, seeks to expand cooperation with Africa beyond energy and amounts to a new philosophy and method, Meloni said. Asked at a closing news conference about the lack of consultation with African leaders, Meloni acknowledged she may have “erred” in being too specific in describing pilot projects in her introductory speech. But she said the summit provided African leaders with a preliminary outline of Italy’s philosophy backed by concrete examples that will be brought forward in a shared partnership. The plan involves pilot projects in areas such as education, health care, water, sanitation, agriculture, and energy infrastructure.
