On 23 September 2026, Antonio Tajani, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy and Alexander De Croo, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Managing Director of the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) met on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week in New York to advance a strategic partnership between UNDP, UNCDF and Italy.<\/p>\n
The Deputy Prime Minister and the Administrator confirmed their shared political understanding to strengthen the UNDP Rome Centre and to initiate the process of moving UNCDF Headquarters management functions to Rome, through the transfer of a substantive number of senior positions, building on the work brought forward in the past year and confirmed during their meeting in February 2026.<\/p>\n
A strengthened UNDP Rome Centre, together with UNCDF\u2019s presence in Rome will open new opportunities for international partners. This will provide a strategic platform for closer cooperation between Italy, UNDP and UNCDF, and will further consolidate UNDP\u2019s role in advancing innovative financing and sustainable investment, reinforcing Rome\u2019s position as a hub for the multilateral development system. The strengthened presence in Rome is intended not only to bring the partners closer together, but also to create new opportunities for joint initiatives and deeper cooperation with the Italian development and financial system.<\/p>\n
This development takes place against the background of an already substantial cooperation between Italy and UNDP. UNDP\u2019s presence in Rome has grown consistently over the past few years and currently consists of nearly 100 personnel and more than USD 100 million in partnership volume, developing strategic initiatives and bankable projects, reducing risk, building trust and mobilizing investment that creates jobs.<\/p>\n
The further strengthening of this strategic partnership is a concrete result of the commitment brought forward by Italy and UNDP, which is consistent with what Italian Prime Minister Meloni announced last March, namely that Rome would become a European hub for investment in Africa. In line with the priorities of the Italian Cooperation globally and the Mattei Plan for Africa, a strengthened UNDP Rome Centre will also help harness the EU Global Gateway to unlock private capital where it is needed most.<\/p>\n
This strategic partnership will aim to mobilize additional national, international, European, as well as private resources, using public finance strategically to unlock larger flows of investment towards partner countries, particularly in fragile and emerging economies.<\/p>\n
Discussions are advancing on joint initiatives involving UNCDF, UNDP and the Italian DFI Cassa Depositi e Prestiti in Ethiopia, Egypt and Palestine, as well as on a pipeline of co-designed programmes that will also leverage on the fact that UNCDF has now completed the European Commission’s Pillar 6 assessment for financial instruments.<\/p>\n
Together with a strengthened annual core funding to UNDP, starting with 5 million EUR in 2026, these initiatives will establish the foundation for a longer-term partnership, with opportunities for more investment by Italy and wider resource mobilisation.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s shared political understanding further strengthens Rome\u2019s strategic role in the heart of the Mediterranean and looking at the Middle East and Africa, as a crucial hub for development finance, sustainable investment and private sector mobilization.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On 23 September 2026, Antonio Tajani, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy and Alexander De Croo, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Managing Director of the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) met on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Week in New York to advance […]","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":186040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,28,26],"class_list":["post-206520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comunicati","tag-cooperazione-sviluppo","tag-ministro","tag-onu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206521,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206520\/revisions\/206521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}