Organised in collaboration with the IMF, the first International Conference on Development and Migration, which took place on 23 July, brought heads of state and government as well as ministers of foreign affairs from the wider Mediterranean region together with representatives of EU member states and the main international financial institutions.
Its aim was to rally support for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s plan to control the flow of migrants and refugees into her country from the Middle East and Africa. In addition to the far right Italian prime minister, participants included Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, Tunisian President Kais Saied, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouni, President of the Libyan Presidential Council Mohamed Al-Menfi, Prime Minister of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah, the EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen and the foreign ministers of Turkey, Malta, Greece, and Ethiopia.
Meloni hopes to encourage the participant countries to join Italy in formulating ways to address emergencies and launching a shared development strategy.
The objectives of the conference were “to launch an international road map for the implementation of concrete measures for growth and development in the wider Mediterranean and Africa; to address the root causes of irregular migration flows to defeat human traffickers’ criminal activities; to find solutions to protect the environment, meeting the challenges of energy diversification and climate change,” according to a statement released by the Italian prime minister’s office.
With this foreign policy initiative, Rome aims to exercise its “key role in the wider Mediterranean” by “launching a multi-year road map, with concrete and verifiable commitments by the participating states on development and migration,” the statement continued.
“The conference is another step as part of the Meloni government’s wide-ranging diplomatic efforts to deal with the emergencies with an integrated approach that aims to build a multidimensional and long-term partnership of equals, based on solidarity among nations, respect for their sovereignty and shared responsibility.”
The Italian plan, proposed by Meloni, involves coordinating efforts to govern irregular and illegal migration, organise the reception of migrants and combat human trafficking through closer security collaboration and better management of border zones. It also aims to “promote economic development based on a new model of collaboration between states, by jointly planning and implementing initiatives and projects in six main sectors: agriculture; energy; infrastructure; education and training; health; water and hygiene.”
The list of attendees demonstrates Italy’s intent to mobilise an international support and funding mechanism for the “Rome process” that Meloni launched, following through on a plan previously unveiled by her government called the Mattei Plan to curb migrant flows. The plan is named after Enrico Mattei, the founder of the Italian energy giant, ENI, who broke the hegemony of the seven major Western energy companies over that sector, linking his breakthrough with development plans.
In addition to senior officials from most of the countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, participants included EU member states of first arrival, Italy’s partners from the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and heads of European and international financial institutions.
In her keynote address, the Italian prime minister said that her country wanted to launch a development programme for countries in Africa and the Mediterranean to combat irregular migration, the flows of which have increased since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. She urged participants to work together to increase security and intelligence coordination to fight human trafficking rings.
Speaking in Rome, Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli spoke of the success of Egypt’s comprehensive approach to addressing the migration problem, proved by the fact that not a single boat carrying illegal migrants has left Egyptian shores since September 2016.
Urging stronger international cooperation in combatting illegal migration, he stressed the need to develop a deeper understanding of its root causes in order to produce more effective solutions. The rise in illegal migration flows is one of the main repercussions of global crises and therefore demands sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships to address them.
In his speech the President of the Libyan Presidential Council Mohamed Al-Manfi stressed that the security approach on its own could never solve the illegal and irregular migration problem.
He also stressed that human trafficking was a cross-border crime that Libya could not combat alone, calling for greater concerted efforts to promote development in Africa, optimising the continent’s natural resources to help the people of the region realise their aspirations to a better future. Comprehensive and sustainable development was essential for uprooting the causes of illegal and irregular migration, he said, adding that closer coordination and solidarity were needed to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states and to reinforce border security to prevent “death boats” from setting sail.
The Prime Minister of the Libyan Government of National Unity Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah took the opportunity to caution against any plans or projects that aim to settle migrants in Libya. He simultaneously reaffirmed Libya’s pledge to fulfill its obligations towards the approximately two million irregular migrants currently in the country.
Tunisian President Kais Saied called on donor nations to establish a new international fund for the purpose and to cancel African nations’ crippling foreign debt burden. “We will never achieve stability if we can not address the root causes of inequality and restore security,” he said.
In a similar spirit, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani called for a sustainable solution to the irregular migration problem. A collective drive offering comprehensive remedies was needed to combat poverty, marginalisation and inequality, and radical and sustainable solutions were needed to fight human trafficking rings that thrived on irregular migration, he said.
Setting a model, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan announced a $100 million donation to support development projects and initiatives in the framework of the Rome Process targeting countries affected by irregular migration. He also called for collective international action to build bridges of cooperation among countries around the world to confront common global challenges, advance human welfare and ensure a prosperous future for the generations to come.
In a joint statement released at the end of the conference, the participants agreed to develop a whole array of measures to slow down the pace of irregular migration and address some of the problems that drive migrants to leave their homes and try to reach Europe. The measures included efforts to marshal funding for development projects devised in the framework of the Rome Process which would continue for many years.
Speaking to reporters after the conference, Prime Minister Meloni praised the participants’ commitment to fighting human trafficking and improving cooperation between European and African countries in such fields as renewable energy. She also stressed her country’s commitment to receiving more migrants through legal channels.
Italy and Europe as a whole “needs migration,” she said in what appears to be a retreat from the hard-line anti-migrant positions she had espoused as an opposition leader before becoming prime minister.
Her government now plans to hold a conference for donor nations to martial financing for the Mattei Plan to curb migration flows.
Despite the repeated emphasis on the need for security and intelligence cooperation to fight human trafficking, it is interesting that Meloni did not address the problem of instability in Sahel and Central African countries which are among the main sources of migration flows to Europe.
On the other hand, she alluded to the long ongoing controversy over migration in Europe, discord over which recently brought down the ruling coalition in the Netherlands. Meloni is likely to encounter difficulty in mobilising European funding to assist first-arrival states, of which Italy is a main one in view of its proximity to North African shores.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 28 July, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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