correspondent Narjes Bdira) – President Kais Saied called on Monday in Rome for the establishment of a humane society based on justice and the elimination of all manifestations of discrimination, misery and poverty.
Speaking at a closed-door session after the opening of the Italy-Africa Summit, under the motto “Mattei Plan for Africa”, Saied said, “We are meeting today with a new way of thinking, on a laudable initiative by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and with approaches that contradict the disappointments of the past and its pains. And we are looking forward to a new future, based on an approach to Africa that is not based on the logic of carriages, but on the logic of driving a locomotive together”.
The Head of State noted that this locomotive is moving “in the direction that we are drawing together for a new humane society”.
He added that the objectives of the “Mattei Plan” for Africa were not limited to establishing cooperation in a number of sectors, but were a two-way route with many stag
es.
These stages relate to all the legitimate demands of each individual, he explained, saying that “it is an opportunity for North and South to meet and for Africa to meet Italy in order to open a new chapter in history”.
The President of the Republic went on to say that “today we are not laying down basic structural pillars, but we are actively contributing to the development of an intellectual structure that breaks with old concepts and opens up new, nobler and higher horizons, in which human beings are equal and there is no preferential arrangement of societies and states”.
President Saied recalled that there have been many conferences in the past, but on almost every occasion they only produce statements, from one capital to another, “everyone wants to be a locomotive and the African countries are wagons being pulled in the direction determined by the owners of the locomotive,” he said.
Saied noted that all tragedies had occurred and continue in Africa at a time when the continent holds one-third of
the world’s wealth and about US$2.4 trillion, a figure that is expected to increase over the next decade, according to the latest Africa Wealth Report 2023.
Earlier, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni opened the Italy-Africa summit with the aim of launching a new phase of cooperation, particularly in the energy sector.
Meloni said her country wanted to launch a number of projects on the African continent, including projects in Tunisia.
Italy is considering setting up a project for wastewater treatment plants using non-traditional methods to irrigate 8,000 hectares in Tunisia, in addition to improving water management and setting up a training centre in the agri-food sector, she added.
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse