31-01-2024 | di COOPI

Italy-Africa conference: civil society calls for promises to be kept.

On 29 January, the opening session of the Italy-Africa Conference marked the launch of the Mattei Plan for Africa. In this regard, as members of Link2007 and promoters of the Campaign 070 and development workers, we make our own the wish expressed on this occasion by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, when he states that it is necessary to establish even more robust and structured relations with those countries.

The conference was strongly desired by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as an opportunity to build a new season in our country's relations with the countries of the African continent, creating, she said

to a partnership model beneficial to all parties, far from paternalistic or predatory logics".

Indeed, President Meloni confirmed her personal commitment to the success of the Mattei Plan, emphasising that the future of Italy inevitably depends on the future of Africa. In the face of this acknowledgement, the commitment to put the Plan into practice through forms of equal cooperation therefore takes on even greater value.

We share this perspective, in the awareness of the scenario in which the Italian initiative is moving, a scenario in which other global players are seeking new agreements with those countries".

We can read in the press release of the Italian civil society organisations, which continues:

We hope that additional resources for international cooperation will be allocated to the Mattei Plan, compared to those already provided by previous governments. In this way it will be possible to approve an adequate investment programme to reach the target of 0.70% of national income to be dedicated to public development aid, as per the international commitments to which Italy has adhered countless times".

Finally, in this context, we welcome the recognition that the challenge of migration cannot be met with repressive policies, but that instead we need to cooperate to enable everyone to fully exercise their right to mobility and migration in a regular and safe manner within the framework of the UN Global Compact. This can be the viaticum to radically innovate the policies implemented so far with a view to co-development.

President Mattarella wished to recall the African proverb:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together with other people'.

We hope, therefore, that the Mattei Plan will be open to all actors in the field, including civil society organisations in Africa and Italy, including diasporas, which can make available experience and skills gained over decades of activities in partnership - dialoguing and working with institutions and local communities, with civil society with associations and families - in the field of vocational training and education, the promotion of small artisan and peasant businesses, access to medicine and health services, the redevelopment of urban peripheries, last-mile water, electricity and digital infrastructures, environmental care and the sustainable valorisation of natural resources and green transition programmes.

The Mattei Plan can thus be a fundamental test-bed for young people, women and men in development cooperation.

 

Download the original Campaign070 press release here.

Photo: ANSA