“The Italian Cooperation is a consolidated presence and continues to play a frontline role in representing Italian interests in the Horn of Africa and the entire eastern region”. Deputy Minister Lapo Pistelli commented as he concluded his mission to Uganda, Kenya and Djibouti, also dedicating special attention to Somalia. Pistelli visited several high-impact and high-profile projects supported by the Italian Cooperation, three of which were realised in collaboration with NGOs working in Uganda (CUAMM, AVSI and AMREF) – respectively the hospital and nursing school of Matany and a resettlement centre for women and children affected by HIV in Kampala – and a centre for street children at Dagoretti, near Nairobi, in Kenya in collaboration with AMREF.The Deputy Minister was on hand, along with Kenyan Minister Charity Ngilu, for the opening of an out-patient clinic and a road in Nairobi’s densely populated Korogocho slum, within the framework of an Italo-Kenyan debt conversion project involving approximately €44 million over 10 years. In the same neighbourhood, Pistelli dedicated the library of the Padri Comboniani centre, funded by an Italian banking foundation. In Djibouti the Deputy Minister visited the Balbalà Hospital, fruit of a bilateral debt conversion programme, and also met with his counterpart there, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ahmed Ali Silay.”The authorities of these three countries expressed their delight with the broad reach and high quality of the Italian Cooperation’s initiatives, along with their hopes for strengthening relations with Italy in this sector as well. It is obvious that cooperation is a tool for strengthening friendships, political and economic collaboration and the prestige of our nation in this part of the world. That depends on the quality of the projects and the persons working in the NGOs, and will obviously depend in the future also on the resources the parliament decides to earmark for Cooperation.”
The Deputy Minister held meetings in both Kampala and Nairobi, and was able to exchange friendly and constructive views with the representatives of the Italian NGOs on the Cooperation’s problems and basic intentions, and on the processes and major international timeframes for the coming years regarding larger development issues.
The Cooperation will also be in the forefront when it comes to the Italian government’s efforts toward the stabilisation of Somalia, as emerged from the meetings Pistelli dedicated to the topic in Nairobi.
