Institutional Cooperation

Unlocking Institutional Cooperation

& Support

Italy enjoys an ancient and deep-rooted history and tradition of widespread presence in, and cooperation with, numerous countries in Africa and related economies and industries.

COIPA Italia’s commitment to initiatives in the African environment (ranging from mining to infrastructure, energy and real estate) addresses the need for both sustainable and balanced growth of African countries and effective support to a more active and greater role of Italian and European major companies towards Africa as an economic and geo-political priority area.

The benefit from large scale projects and major economic and industrial initiatives taking place in Africa is twfold:

• to African economy, it is significant based on the the impact that construction and operation of such initiatives will generate on availability of essential infrastructure, industrial and commercial exploitation of the countries’ enormous mineral and several other kinds of natural resources, creation of thousands of job opportunities, both direct and indirect, and substantial improvement of the quality of life of local inhabitants;
• to Italian and Euoperan companies and investors, it is an opportunity to get involved in helping local economies grow and develop essential and quality projects in the economic and geo-political area that is expected to grow the most over the short and medium term and that has advantage of being a proximity friend.

In connection with such kind of initiatives COIPA engages first in establishing a dialogue with local Governments and public entities on the basis of which the fundamentals of a specific initiatives are outlined and COIPA can then be considered for the purpose of being entrusted, according to applicable regulations and procedures, to co-coperate on the actual development of the project.

Once the mandate (or other form of co-operation including MoU, concession scheme, work and/or service contract) is entrusted, COIPA activates for the purpose of developing the desing, technical features, construction and operation structure, financial structure and essential legal documentatio of the project

On parallell, and since the stage of early talks with local Governments, COIPA takes action to engage equity investors, contractors and suppliers with a view to maximizing the involvement of Italian/European companies and obtaining support from SACE SpA (the Italian Export Credit Agency) and, if applicable, other European ECAs, in connection with both the equity investment and debt financing related to supply of goods and services of Italian/European origin.

•  https://www.sace.it/en/media/sace-best-export-credit-agency-in-europe-and-middle-east

COIPA, subject to relevant prerequisites, engages also in the presentation of the project to the Italian Government for the purpose of such initiative being included in the so called “Mattei Plan for Africa”, the program launched to implement Italy’s strategy for Africa in the years to come and to cooperate with selected African countries and foster and support their infrastructure and industrial development potential.

•  https://www.esteri.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ISPI_FPC-Piano-Mattei.pdf

COIPA, on a case by case basis, also looks for involvement of other institutions (e.g. Europeran or international cooperation funds) and multilaterals (e.g.African Development Bank; World Bank; European Investment Bank; IFC) to foster and provide additional institutional and financial support to increase robustness of the the risk matrix, the business plan, the debt cover and return on equity and investment.