A milestone and, at the same time, a new starting point: the Italy–Africa Summit currently taking place in Addis Ababa represents a pivotal moment that, in the present context, takes on particular significance. Italy arrives at the headquarters of the African Union with the strength of a non‑random path of agreements developed with several African countries, and from here it can relaunch proposals that are relevant to the entire Italian system, but also to the European Union, which is now called upon to define the new Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028–2034.
This summit comes two years after the launch of the Mattei Plan, a political initiative that has mobilized a wide range of actors - institutions, universities, regions, businesses, and civil society - in the design and implementation of projects that are innovative in both scale and potential impact, and that has positioned the Italy-Africa relationship on an alternative plane compared to the opposing poles of Afro‑enthusiasts (“Africa is a vast market to be taken advantage of") and Afro‑pessimists (“Africa will never make it”).
Over the past year in particular, large‑scale development cooperation projects have been launched, designed according to criteria that promote co‑programming among civil society organizations, businesses, and governments, and that are capable of triggering development on a broad scale (it is enough to mention a project in Côte d’Ivoire, funded by Italian Cooperation, involving 800 schools and leading to a reform of the national education system). These programs will of course need to be monitored and evaluated, in order to reassure taxpayers that public funds are being spent transparently, but they nonetheless represent emblematic cases that can also exert influence at the European level.
We hope that the experiences being reviewed today in Addis Ababa may inspire clear recommendations for those who will decide how, and how much, the EU will invest in the coming years. At this critical moment - marked by chronic crises and by the withdrawal of major donors from official development assistance - the EU cannot afford to step back from its identity‑defining commitment to the objectives enshrined in its founding treaties, which include the eradication of poverty and the promotion of human and sustainable development. On the contrary, it is called upon to relaunch its role on the global stage while safeguarding its values. Here, too, the EU can draw lessons from Italy. With the Mattei Plan—which cannot be reduced to a single political season, but must endure over time in order to bear fruit—our country is concretely demonstrating that investment in education, healthcare, and social cohesion is an integral component of any investment aimed at achieving lasting economic or infrastructural development. Corridors, facilities, and road and rail networks are developed in areas where people and communities live, and these communities must be actively involved in the decisions that are made.
The alternative is to indulge in the illusion of chasing China or other expanding powers in Africa, while instead creating new pockets of poverty and instability. The negotiation of the new European Multiannual Financial Framework therefore represents a timely opportunity to reaffirm this approach, which places value on integral human development and supports the organizations that implement it. The Italian system holds in its hands this effective form of soft power, along with a set of good practices to share—first and foremost those cooperation projects which, when designed through co‑programming around the central pillar of safeguarding human dignity, prove successful and generate development that leaves no one behind.
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