Italy presents its “New Deal” for Africa at summit in Rome

Italy hosts a summit of African leaders in Rome on Monday where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is expected to unveil energy deals in exchange for increased cooperation on migration, an approach “same” which struggles to convince its opponents.

The challenge of this conference: the unveiling of “Matei Plan”Named after Enrico Mattei, the founder of NI (Italian public energy giant), who, in the 1950s, advocated cooperative relations with African countries, helping them develop their natural resources.

Implementation of development plan

Italy, which chairs this year’s G7, has pledged to make African development a central theme of its mandate, to increase its influence on a continent where powers such as China, Russia, Turkey, India and Japan have increased their political weight. Leaders of more than 25 countries, whose list has not been officially communicated, are expected in the Senate along with representatives of United Nations agencies, representatives of the World Bank and the African Union, as well as representatives of economic institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. IMF).

Particular attention should be paid to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, whose ruling military regimes announced their withdrawal on Sunday. “without delay” Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The conference, which ends on Monday evening, also announced the presidents of the European institutions, Ursula von der Leyen (Commission), Charles Michel (European Council) and Roberta Metsola (Parliament).

Rome hopes to involve all these international players in the implementation of its plan on various development sectors such as education, health system and water. But experts suggest Italy may have trouble getting support from the European Union, which has unveiled a 150 billion euro aid plan for Africa in 2022.

Four billion euros over the next five to seven years

Coming to power in 2022 on an anti-immigration program, the Italian head of government hopes to build Italy a bridge between Europe and Africa, providing the former with new supply routes for energy resources and major investments in the latter. For the moment, the Italian government, which reduced its bilateral development aid last year (except for Libya), has allocated 2.8 million euros per year between 2024 and 2026 under the Mattei plan, of which we do not know the amount or terms. In fact, according to the daily Corriere della SerraRome could allocate four billion euros to the plan over the next five to seven years in agri-industry, transport and infrastructure – and especially energy.

Georgia Maloney wants to capitalize on demand from other European countries looking to reduce their dependence on Russian gas following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. About forty African civil society organizations have expressed concern that the plan has only one objective. “To increase Italy’s access to African fossil gas for the benefit of Europe and to strengthen the role of Italian companies in the exploitation of Africa’s natural and human resources”.

At the scale of migration, the Mattei Plan plans to address the so-called factors “Incentives” and persuading countries of origin to sign readmission agreements for inadmissible migrants. Despite the Italian leader’s commitments to stop boats from North Africa, landings in Italy have risen sharply since she took office, from around 105,000 migrants in 2022 to around 158,000 in 2023.