The joint mission of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (Maeci) to Eritrea took place in recent days.
The visit involved the Italian development cooperation system, in its components AICS and the Directorate General for Development Cooperation of Maeci, flanked by officials from other branches of Maeci: General Secretariat, Directorate General for Globalisation and Global Issues, Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy.
The Maeci and Aics officials met with various Eritrean institutional interlocutors (at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Agriculture and Health, and the Commission for Culture and Sport), other key players on the local scene (heads of the Eritrean government party's Economic Affairs the local office of the United Nations, the Eritrean workers' union) and visited several projects of our development cooperation in Asmara and Massawa, as well as the archaeological site of Adulis, where an Italian archaeological mission has been working for years thanks to the joint funding of AICS and Maeci.
The mission, accompanied by Ambassador Marco Mancini and the deputy head of mission, Paolo Zampella, is part of the current deepening of bilateral Italian-Eritrean relations, also within the framework of the Italian government's increased attention towards the African continent in general.