Ursula Von der Leyen is co-chairing, together with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a summit on cooperation with Africa, entitled "The Mattei Plan for Africa and the Global Gateway: A common effort with the African continent", at which the continent is represented by President João Lourenço, currently acting president of the African Union, and also by leaders of Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, as well as institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the African Development Bank (ADB).
In her opening speech, the president of the EU executive defended the alignment of the two investment strategies in Africa - the so-called Mattei Plan, proposed by Italy last year, and the "Global Gateway" initiative, a 150 billion euro investment package launched in 2022 by the European Union, considering that both "were born to be collective undertakings" and "to face common challenges", with the aim of "seizing opportunities that benefit everyone involved".
Considering that "there is a new dynamism in the way Africa and Europe work together", not least because their interests "are more aligned than ever", Von der Leyen highlighted, among the objectives of the enhanced cooperation, "boosting the production of clean energy on both continents", "connecting digital markets" and "building modern economic corridors".
“For all this, we need investment […] We see that other countries around the world are reducing their funding. We think this is wrong. Attracting new investment to Africa is in the interests of both. And today’s event shows that our approach is delivering results,” she said.
Focusing on investment in “large-scale infrastructure,” which, he stressed, “is not just about building railways, bridges and dams,” but also means “investing in training local workers, because that creates capacity and that’s how knowledge transfer happens,” resulting in “positive spillovers into all local economies in Africa,” Von der Leyen then declared that “there is no better example than the work done on the Lobito Corridor.”
This 830-kilometer railway structure will link Angola and Zambia via the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), creating a regional logistics hub for the transport of minerals and agricultural products.
“We launched it together at the G20 Summit in 2023. We mobilized investments in railways and other modes of transport to connect the landlocked mining regions of DR Congo and Zambia to the Atlantic coast of Angola. But the corridor is much more than a railway to the mining regions. Today, we are signing three financing agreements with Angola, so that the entire economy of the country can benefit from the corridor,” he said.
“We will finance vocational training, so that the Angolan population has the right skills for the jobs created by our investments. We will bring local food products to national and international markets. And we will promote tourism along the corridor. This generates local growth and jobs – along all value chains and throughout the economy,” he specified.
At the end of the proceedings, this Friday afternoon, a joint press conference by Giorgia Meloni, Von der Leyen and João Lourenço is scheduled.
