Italy reiterates its strong support for CFC as it explores options to do more together
H.E. Mr. Giorgio Novello, Ambassador of the Italian Republic to the Kingdom of the Netherlands led a high level Italian delegation to the Secretariat of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC). The purpose of the visit was to reiterate Italy’s strong support for the mission and vision of CFC as it explores options to do more together.
During the visit, Ambassador Novello was accompanied by Mr. Simon Carta, Deputy Head of Mission and Alternate Executive Director for Italy to the CFC, Mr. Lorenzo Ermacora, Chief of Staff, and Ms. Rizzy Andong, Personal Assistant to the Ambassador. Ambassador Belal was accompanied by Mr. Andrey Kuleshov, Chief, Strategy and Development and Mr Nicolaus Cromme, Chief Operation Officer.
Ambassador Belal gave an introduction to the CFC and highlighted the growing demand for CFC investments, which is outpacing the available financing resources. He emphasized the need for greater support infrastructure to meet the expectations of member countries.
Furthermore, Ambassador Belal discussed the introduction of the Agricultural Commodity Transformation (ACT) Fund, previously known as CIIF, at the LDC5 Conference in Doha. He shared the CFC's roadmap for poverty alleviation in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Land Locked Developed Countries (LLDCs), and beyond. Member countries were encouraged to join the ACT Fund as anchor investors and promote it to the private sector.
Ambassador Belal also registered CFC’s appreciation for the leadership of Italy in hosting Italy -Africa summit with the presence of sizable African leaders. The outcome of the summit is historic as it pledges about a $6 billion USD fund for the development of Africa. Beyond energy cooperation, this fund focuses on education and training, agriculture, health and water.
Highlighting the importance of stemming the flow of illegal immigration, CFC reiterated its commitment to do more together to stem the flow of illegal immigration through pilot initiatives in the immigration hot spots. A trilateral partnership like Italy, European Union and CFC could be worked out for a region wide initiatives towards creating jobs that will help African youths to remain gainfully engaged in their home country and thereby refraining from jumping into boats to arrive at the European shores.
Ambassador Novello expressed appreciation for the CFC's initiative in launching the ACT Fund. He assured his support for this, in his word, innovative idea to alleviate more people form poverty. Ambassador Novello registered Italy’s appreciation for CFC’s technology enabled investments to address poverty in the developing world and assured to explore options so that CFC could increase its capacity to meet its heightened demands. Ambassador Novello emphasized the importance of commodities and their impact on grassroot communities to help lift more people out of poverty.
In response, Ambassador Belal assured the visiting delegation that the CFC would continue to pursue innovative approaches to make its services available to as many people as possible in commodity-dependent developing countries.
Both Ambassadors expressed their commitment to advancing the cause of commodities and its positive impact on people's lives, as they resolved to work together for future cooperation and creative solutions.
