The integration of environmental and climate issues into development interventions is a cross-cutting and priority element of the Italian Cooperation System’s action, in line with the commitments undertaken under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Agreement. Italian Cooperation promotes interventions that address environmental challenges through an integrated approach, combining mitigation and adaptation to climate change, biodiversity conservation, food security, sustainable management of natural resources, and the promotion of responsible production and consumption patterns.
The Italian Climate Fund
The Italian Climate Fund is the main national public instrument dedicated to financing climate mitigation and adaptation measures in partner countries. Headquartered at the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (MASE) and managed by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), with a budget of €4.4 billion, the Fund enables Italy to contribute to its international climate finance commitments.
The Fund’s resources are allocated to projects that address the causes and effects of climate change, with particular attention to climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives, biodiversity conservation, and the fight against desertification.
Since its inception, the Fund has adopted projects and initiatives also within the framework of the Mattei Plan for Africa, including participation in multilateral funds such as the “Mattei Plan and Rome Process Financial Facility“, established at the African Development Bank; the “Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa“, and projects to provide access to sustainable energy and support food sovereignty in several African countries.
The Fund also ensures Italy’s participation in the “Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage” (Loss and Damage Fund), established under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement and hosted by the World Bank. This is a multilateral financial mechanism aimed at providing assistance to developing countries, which are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change by financing interventions to address both financial and non-financial loss and damage already incurred, resulting from extreme weather events and slow-onset processes and phenomena.
Related Links
Italian Climate Fund – Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security
Mattei Plan for Africa: resources and financial instruments | www.governo.it
Fondo Italiano per il Clima – Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Sicurezza energetica
(Italian Climate Fund – Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security)
Piano Mattei per l’Africa: le risorse e gli strumenti finanziari | www.governo.it (Mattei Plan for Africa: Resources and Financial Instruments | www.governo.it)
Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa
Fund for responding to Loss and Damage | UNFCCC
The “Green Cities Initiative in Action for Africa”
The most significant initiatives of the Italian Cooperation in the environmental sector include the “Green Cities Initiative in Action for Africa,” implemented in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and part of a broader FAO project. This initiative supports two cities in each of the five participating African countries (Algeria, the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, and Uganda) in developing action plans for climate adaptation interventions implemented at the urban level.
These action plans, co-generated with local government and non-government authorities and entities, will then turn into bankable, systemic, and innovative projects in areas such as urban forestry, sustainable waste management, strengthening links between urban and rural areas, and increasing the resilience of food systems. The objective of this action is twofold: on the one side, to integrate existing data with new analyses to map the climate adaptation needs of the urban areas affected, highlighting the connections between climate vulnerability and the socioeconomic challenges of urban and peri-urban populations; on the other side, to provide the local players involved with the necessary information to identify priority areas for intervention and have access to funding from the financial instruments available to the Italian Cooperation System, primarily the Italian Climate Fund.
Related Links
Themes | FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Italy’s Role in International Climate Conferences
Italy has traditionally participated proactively in major international climate conferences, starting with the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Italy’s presence at the COPs is characterized year after year by a concrete commitment to promoting initiatives that link climate action to development cooperation, supporting the principle of climate justice, and working to ensure that financing for climate actually reaches the most vulnerable communities.
At COP30 in Belém, held in November 2025, Italy took a particularly prominent role, inter alia, in the energy transition sector, co-promoting – together with Japan and India – the “Belém 4X Pledge on Sustainable Fuels“, an initiative launched by Brazil and aimed at quadrupling the production of sustainable fuels by 2035, starting from 2024 levels. This commitment stems from a recognition of the necessary balance between the urgency of an energy transition aimed at curbing global warming, on the one hand, and the need to continue ensuring energy security to preserve the well-being and competitiveness of global economies, on the other. According to this pragmatic approach, there is no contradiction between energy transition and energy security, and by embracing it, Italy has confirmed its leadership in the search for concrete, innovative, and cutting-edge solutions for a sustainable energy future.
Related Links
UN Climate Change Conference – Belém, November 2025 | UNFCCC
COP30, Ministerial Roundtable sull’implementazione del Belém 4X Pledge spinta (COP 30, Ministerial Roundtable on the Implementation of the Belém 4X Pledge)
Clean fuels: The COP30 pledge to scale sustainable energy | World Economic Forum