The Mattei Plan is a major political initiative for Italy, which has quickly mobilized a wide range of actors and resources. From the moment Prime Minister Meloni mentioned it at the start of her term, the Plan attracted widespread interest, sparked lively debates, and activated numerous Italian and international stakeholders eager to explore the opportunities it opens along the Italy-Africa axis and to engage with the momentum it has generated.
More than a year after its official launch at the Italy-Africa Conference in January 2024 — where its goals, pillars, and target countries were outlined — the Mattei Plan has become a valuable asset for those working in development cooperation and the humanitarian sector. In today’s increasingly tense and conflict-prone geopolitical landscape, the Plan stands out because it envisions international cooperation as a genuine partnership of equals, rather than a transactional relationship where stronger actors impose their prerogatives on weaker ones.
According to its official definition, the Mattei Plan is a strategic project encompassing diplomacy, development cooperation, and investment, aimed at strengthening and renewing Italy's ties with the African continent. It involves both the creation of new projects and the active support of ongoing initiatives, working closely with African partners to ensure that tangible value reaches local populations at every stage of design and implementation.
The Plan adopts a comprehensive, non-predatory approach, emphasizing the importance of shared sustainable socio-economic development and collective responsibility for stability and security. These are seen as the foundations for long-lasting, mutually beneficial relations between Africa and Europe. The objective is to develop new projects or scale up existing ones through co-programming with African countries. As stated in the official text, this aims to “ensure economic and social returns that remain in the region and serve as a stable resource base for future expansions.”
The Pillars of the Mattei Plan
- Education and Training:
The Plan aims to enhance teacher training and curriculum development, launch new vocational and technical training programs aligned with labor market demands, and foster collaboration with businesses — particularly by engaging Italian stakeholders and leveraging Italy’s model of small and medium-sized enterprises. - Agriculture:
The Plan focuses on reducing malnutrition, developing agri-food supply chains, and supporting the growth of non-fossil biofuels. Key priorities include the development of family farming, preservation of forest resources, and tackling climate change through integrated agricultural practices. - Health:
It seeks to strengthen healthcare systems by improving access to and the quality of primary maternal and child health services. It also aims to build local capacity in management, training, and employment of health workers, promote research and digital health solutions, and develop strategies to prevent and contain health threats — especially pandemics and natural disasters. - Energy:
Strategically, the goal is to position Italy as an energy hub — a bridge between Europe and Africa. Projects will focus on the climate-energy nexus, promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, and accelerating the transition of electric systems, particularly in renewable generation and transmission and distribution - Water:
Efforts include drilling solar-powered wells, maintaining existing water points, investing in distribution networks, and promoting awareness about the use of clean and safe drinking water. - Infrastructure:
This cross-cutting area supports all the above sectors, covering both physical and digital infrastructure.
Pilot Projects and Methodologies
For implementation, the Mattei Plan initially focused on pilot projects in nine countries: four in North Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria) and five in Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Republic of the Congo, and Côte d’Ivoire). In 2025, Angola, Ghana, Mauritania, Tanzania, and Senegal were added to the list.
The Plan is ambitious not only in scope but also in its choice of key concepts: effectiveness (with a results-oriented approach), integration and flexibility (through scaling and multidimensionality), added value (projects capable of significantly improving local living conditions), incremental potential (system-level thinking), and sustainability and replicability.
Promoted by the Prime Minister’s Office, the Plan was formalized in November 2023 and enacted into law in January 2024, establishing a Steering Committee responsible for coordinating the actions of the various Italian public administrations involved. This Committee includes relevant Ministries and, as of the March 6, 2024 Decree, has expanded to include public and private entities, third sector organizations, and publicly owned companies.
Using a bold yet fitting metaphor: “We are the Mattei Plan”, as it involves all of us — civil society organizations, the private sector, institutions, and universities — the entire national system.
This is why the Mattei Plan represents an opportunity to be fully seized: if Italy plays its cards right, it will lead to a paradigm shift in relations between Italy and several African countries, moving toward sustainable and equitable development for all.
Simplifying Procedures
Reforms are certainly needed, for instance, changes to the procedures under Law 125 on development cooperation. Without compromising legality and transparency, it is essential to innovate, simplify processes, and reduce costs and management times for public funds—current procedures are inadequate for today’s context. For example, African partners often express disbelief when asked to apply the Italian procurement code or submit mandatory documents in Italian.
However, these changes are within reach, considering what is at stake regarding public development aid.
While the U.S. has cut foreign aid funding, halting 5,200 ongoing projects, and countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and France have slashed cooperation budgets, Italy is choosing a different path with the Mattei Plan: it promotes collaboration—not mere competition—between Europe and Africa, positioning development cooperation as a strategic foreign policy asset rather than a well-meaning but ineffective (or even counterproductive) activity.
Italy does not intend to reduce its relationship with Africa to a quid pro quo, nor to frame it within colonialist logic and methods. Instead, it seeks equal partnerships between countries/continents that view development as a shared challenge. Naturally, the Mattei Plan has aspects to correct and requires careful implementation, but in light of today’s context, where the narrative increasingly dismisses humanitarian and cooperation spending as wasteful, it offers a promising development perspective.
While other countries retreat, Italy is expanding its outlook, refusing to confine itself within its borders under the illusion of independent development.
The Mattei Plan’s Boomerang Risk
The Mattei Plan has raised interest and expectations among African countries. We see this firsthand during field missions and international events, such as meetings with the Ugandan Prime Minister, the Ivorian Minister of Education, and the Congolese Minister for SMEs, among others—expectations that must not be betrayed.
Failure to meet these expectations with concrete responses would turn the Mattei Plan into a boomerang. Therefore, we must move into the implementation phase decisively, with certain priorities.
First, we must avoid overextending the number of countries involved, focusing instead on a select few and proceeding systematically.
Furthermore, we should avoid scattergun projects that fail to deliver consistent and lasting results, and instead work to consolidate the already chosen strategy of scaling up successful models that bring tangible improvements to people’s lives. The Plan must focus on a few significant, large-scale, high-impact projects.
It is essential to define the implementing entities and budget allocations (e.g., from DGCS programming, the Climate Fund, or CDP). The Climate Fund, for instance, has struggled to identify suitable projects and has seen minimal business involvement. The reasons for this lack of participation should be investigated to make the fund useful for the Mattei Plan.
Similarly, we need to unlock and utilize already available resources. AICS (Italian Agency for Development Cooperation) and DGCS (Directorate General for Development Cooperation) have nearly €2 billion to spend, but scaling up Mattei Plan projects requires changes to Law 125, as current regulations prevent many scale-ups. A notable example is the recent AICS call for proposals in Ivory Coast, which attempted to apply the scale-up concept under current regulations. The results are still pending, but the process clearly aimed to work on different scales, with large projects capable of generating systemic change and enabling long-term development.
Given the changing international context, it is urgent to link the Mattei Plan to the EU's Global Gateway. They must proceed in an integrated manner, and we need to concretely assess what this integration means in terms of opportunities and innovation. This is a pressing question in Brussels: how can these two important planning tools—Italy’s Mattei Plan and the EU’s Global Gateway—interact effectively?
Bottom-up Synergies
One major question remains: how can we achieve effective collaboration between businesses, civil society organizations, and institutions? We attempt this in many ways and contexts, but it’s not always easy to move beyond the client/supplier dynamic and establish genuine co-programming and co-design partnerships. The road is long and winding, but this is the direction we must take.
These proposals and recommendations, including the call to amend Law 125, are underpinned by a dual aim: replacing bureaucratic frameworks with genuine trust and partnerships, and affirming that international cooperation is essential as a foreign policy tool fostering economic stability and peace—contrary to the stance of those who have chosen to shut down initiatives like USAID.
Of course, a degree of courage is required, but this seems not to be lacking among the stakeholders fully invested in the Plan—certainly not among civil society organizations that have been operating in Africa for over fifty years and are among the continent’s primary investors.
For example, AVSI invests around €80 million per year in Africa, with a specific added value: it reaches the “last mile,” fosters bottom-up synergies, and keeps individuals and communities involved in project design, planning, and joint implementation.
This is where the Mattei Plan’s success will come from: from engaged and involved communities.
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Articolo pubblicato nel numero 14 del 2025 di Nuova Atlantide, il trimestrale della Fondazione per la Sussidiarietà