The second meeting in 2021 of the Joint Development Cooperation Committee, the decision-making body that decides on development cooperation matters, was held today. The meeting was chaired, for the first time since taking on responsibility for development cooperation, by the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Marina Sereni.
The Committee was attended, as voting members, by the Director General for Development Cooperation, Ambassador Giorgio Marrapodi, the Director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), Min. Plen. Luca Maestripieri, and, limited to questions concerning aid credits, the Director of the International Financial Relations Office of the MEF, Mr. Leone Gianturco, having been delegated by the Director General of the Treasury. Information was also provided by the Director General for Italians Abroad and Migration Policies, Min. Plen. Luigi M. Vignali, on the Migration Fund, and communications by Ms. Paola Pettinari of the MEF and Ms. Antonella Baldino of CDP.
Among the 44 items on the agenda, the Joint Committee resolved on expenditure commitments amounting to €155,121,260.00, divided as follows: 1 aid credit, in favour of Albania, for €35,000,000.00, which are part of the Italian Government’s pledge for the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake of November 2019; 21 voluntary contributions, totalling €103,606. 000, in favour of international bodies for initiatives in the areas of health and global education, food security, cultural heritage, gender equality, entrepreneurship, refugees and resilience; 8 finalized contributions for €9.1 million in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Lebanon, Niger and Syria; 3 bilateral initiatives involving Afghanistan Egypt and Somalia for €7,415,260.
Among the other significant aspects, the approval of the 2021 Gift Programme and the appointments of the AICS foreign office holders in Amman, Beirut, Dakar, Khartoum and Mogadishu. The guidelines for childhood and adolescence were also presented, which are the result of an in-depth discussion between all the relevant institutional, international and civil society stakeholders.
“Development Cooperation plays a truly important role as a strategic lever of our foreign policy, especially now, with the COVID-19 pandemic that has highlighted how, more than ever before, it is essential to nurture solidarity at the global level,” Vice Minister Sereni said, adding: “In recent weeks we have therefore approved numerous emergency health contributions to South Sudan, Uganda, Mali, Somalia, Djibouti, Nigeria, Senegal, Palestine and the Central African Republic, and organised two humanitarian flights to Tripoli and Mekelle”.
