The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hon. Edmondo Cirielli, led the Italian delegation in Seville that participated in the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), the main event of the UN agenda for 2025 dedicated specifically to financial instruments to promote cooperation projects. Besides officials from the Foreign Ministry, the delegation also included representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, AICS and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP).
The Deputy Minister spoke at the side event dedicated to the “Italian Call to Action”, a project aimed at ensuring training and technical assistance for cooperation projects to be implemented with innovative finance instruments, thanks also to CDP’s commitment on this front in partner countries. The Call to Action is based on a project of excellence launched in collaboration with the National School of Administration of Caserta (SNA) to train senior executives of Italian cooperation partner countries in Africa, in line with the spirit of the Mattei Plan.
The Deputy Minister said: ”Although it is still essential to quantitatively increase resources allocated to development aid – as Italy did in 2024 – we believe it is fundamental to improve the quality and systemic impact of public resources to ensure better debt management, more effective mobilization of internal resources and a greater capacity to attract sustainable investment.”
Hon. Cirielli finally underlined the importance of the Italian initiative on debt in Africa announced by Prime Minister Meloni, pointing out that, over the next 10 years, 100% of the debt of the least developed African countries and 50% of the debt of low- and medium-income countries will be converted into development accelerators in line with the strategies of African partners interested in Italy’s Cooperation projects.