Prompted by Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, the Secretary General of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Ambassador Riccardo Guariglia, will travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on 16 and 17 March to chair an area meeting focusing on the prospects for Italian development cooperation in East Africa.
The meeting will be attended by the Ambassadors and heads of the offices of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation Agency (Agenzia Italiana per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, AICS) responsible for Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, as well as by the Director General for Development Cooperation, Stefano Gatti, the AICS Director, Marco Rusconi, and senior representatives of the Italian development bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.
The area meeting, which is part of a joint mission undertaken by the Italian Cooperation system in Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, confirms the central role played by Africa in Italian foreign policy and constitutes a solid follow-up to the Italy-Africa Summit hosted in Rome last January.
The meeting will be an opportunity to discuss the strategy to be adopted by the Italian Cooperation in East Africa, which will be based on the needs, priorities, and development programmes of the partner countries, and to define the synergies that could be developed with the activities designed to support the internationalisation of Italian enterprises.
The aim is also to promote, in line with the approach and goals of the Mattei Plan, a “diplomacy of growth” that is mutually beneficial for Italy and African countries. This can be achieved also through the identification and development of major projects in strategic sectors, in collaboration with public and private entities within Sistema Italia. A first important example of these projects is the launch of a regional programme – conceived and developed in collaboration with leading Italian coffee companies – focused on the sustainable development of a coffee production chain that is resilient to climate change and aimed at creating value and job opportunities in partner countries.
