What’s behind Italy’s Africa initiative? Gas, cynicism and an unspoken colonial past | Jamie Mackay

Giorgia Meloni's much-touted plan has more to do with energy supply and EU politics than tackling longstanding inequalities

Not so long ago, Giorgia Meloni was calling for naval blockades along the African coastline and regaling her millions of supporters with white-nationalist conspiracy theories. Now, just over a year into her mandate, Italy's far-right prime minister has radically sanitised her discourse. Last week, at a summit in Rome, Meloni declared that Europe's paternalistic" approach to Africa had failed. From now on, she promised, Italy would be pursuing a mutually beneficial" cooperation among equals", free from the predatory impositions" of the past.

As a gesture towards this new approach, the government has pledged more than 5.5bn (4.7bn) to fund energy, education, healthcare and agriculture initiatives in Morocco, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Mozambique, Egypt, the Republic of the Congo and others. In exchange, Meloni hopes African nations will take measures to help stop irregular boat crossings in parts of the Mediterranean, which last year rose by approximately 50% on 2022.

Jamie Mackay is a writer and translator based in Florence