“An action plan by which we want to make our contribution and unleash African energies also to guarantee younger generations a right that has so far been denied. In Europe, we often talk about the right to emigrate, but almost never about how to guarantee the right not to be forced to migrate”. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni opened the Italy-Africa Summit at the Senate with a speech focused on the so-called “Mattei Plan”. Among the guests were many African and EU leaders. For Meloni, “mass illegal immigration will never be stopped and human traffickers will never be defeated if the causes that force a person to leave their home are not addressed. This is what we intend to do: on the one hand, to declare war on smugglers and, on the other, to work to offer African peoples an alternative in terms of opportunities, training, and legal migration paths”.
“The Mattei Plan – Meloni explained – is a concrete plan of strategic interventions, focused on medium- to long-term priorities: education and training, health and agriculture, water and energy. We have identified some African nations in the sub-Saharan and North African quadrant, which will then be expanded”. Examples of projects included in the plan (on which Italy is expected to invest 5.5 billion) are a vocational training centre on renewable energy in Morocco, training courses in Tunisia, health projects, and investment in other fields in Algeria, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Kenya.