Project:
"Developing Africa: an Opportunity for Europe, Italy and Sicily"

In recent years, Africa has grown at a rate of 5-7% annually, with double-digit figures for many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Investment flows in this part of the world have also more than tripled since early 2000, registering compound rates of growth that are multiples of average rates globally. This translates into making Africa a continent of tremendous opportunities that cut across all sectors of development.

The active involvement of the world's main players—the United States, China, Japan and India—which continue to invest at ever-increasing levels on the basis of precise national penetration strategies, is an indication of the interest and strategic role Africa is taking on within the global geopolitical scenario.

The traditional approach to development of international bodies has been superseded (also in light of the often unsatisfactory results seen over time compared with the large amount of funds invested—over 1 trillion dollars since the 1960s).

Today, Africa offers itself increasingly as an economic partner on equal footing: a "charity-based" approach is increasingly being replaced by a "business-for-business" one (a mutually-profitable agreement between public and private African and foreign players around concrete projects in designated sectors).

Naturally, during this process of emergence of the African continent, a number of unknowns and uncertainties exist due to the fragility of many of the national political and economic systems, persisting strong dependence on international aid, demographic trends which are often uncontrolled and specific special cases. Among the open questions is certainly that of the current international crisis and its impact on Africa, still currently a major interrogative point.

In this context, above and beyond its normal relationships (primarily bilateral between countries traditionally active in the area) and recent initiatives, the European presence in African is still quite limited. Especially in the mental map of the business community, Africa remains a “no man's land”. 

In 2006, on the basis of these premises and at the request of the Fondazione Banco di Sicilia, The European House-Ambrosetti initiated a long-term project whose objective is to make European leaders aware of the opportunities (in primis, business opportunities) in Africa, promote strengthening of strategic relations between the two continents and launch a number of  concrete initiatives in key development sectors of mutual interest to Europe (including Italy) and Africa.

Involved in the project are many top-level players, including the Italian Foreign Ministry, African ambassadors in Rome, a number of African governments, the European Commission and representatives of state and privately-owned business in selected European countries (in particular Germany and Spain).

Each year, the results of the project are concretized in an exclusive Forum that brings together political leaders, the business world, Nobel prize winners and opinion leaders in a strategic debate on European-African relations and the initiatives that are launched each year.

  Download Africa (everything on the project)