Thank you Mr.Chair,
Italy is honored to embrace the call of the Secretary General in his recent report published yesterday to move towards truly “transformational pathways”, in particular to “food, energy, digital access, education, jobs, and climate” to accelerate the SDGs.
These priorities do, indeed, reflect those of the Italian “Mattei Plan” for Africa – our footprint for our cooperation with the African continent based on dialogue, respect and identity recognize the specific challenges of LDC, LDCs and MICs.
The Mattei Plan, indeed, puts emphasis on the role of the private sector and the opportunity to build sustainable and inclusive partnerships to unlock private capital and work together with the international regional financial institutions including the African Development Bank and the African Finance Corporations.
Actions envisage embrace activities such as the support to the Lobito Corridor, the promotion of a strategy to develop the coffee value chains, and the strengthening of Digital infrastructures, through initiative like the AI Hub for Sustainable Development.
In parallel, we need to promote and implement a more integrated and holistic approach to technical assistance and capacity building, to respond to the increasing demand.
And we also have to address the issue of debt in order to sustain all the initiatives above and adopt that conversation mechanism fully aligned with national priorities that are really and truly catalysts for transformative investment.
Allow me just to recall, Mr. Chair, before concluding, that Italy will have the honor to co-host with Ethiopia the second stocktaking moment of the UN Food Systems Summit in Addis Ababa from July 27th to 29th. And we look forward to work together on this global opportunity to move from commitment to delivery and make it a success.
Thank you.
