In the geopolitical and economic confrontation currently unfolding across Africa, digital technology is no longer just one sector among others. It is strategic infrastructure. It is the ground on which the capacity of the State, the competitiveness of businesses, the attractiveness of investments, and the quality of services are measured. For this reason, speaking today about digital public infrastructure means speaking not only about innovation, but also about economic sovereignty, industrial growth, and institutional modernization. The point is clear: without reliable digital identities, interoperable payments, robust public registries, secure data exchange, and accessible digital services, technological transformation remains fragmented. Even artificial intelligence, which is at the center of the global debate, risks resting on foundations that are too weak.

It is no coincidence that the World Bank continues to indicate as a strategic objective for the continent that, by 2030, every individual, business, and government in Africa should be “digitally enabled”. Nor is it a coincidence that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recalls that, in 2024, only 38% of the African population used the internet, while it is estimated that 416 million people use mobile internet, but around three quarters of the population still remain unconnected. The message is simple: the room for growth is enormous, but it depends on the quality of infrastructure, not only on the spread of tools. It is precisely on this ground that the Mattei Plan has already produced a real discontinuity. It has placed digital technology back within an organic vision of Italy’s projection in Africa, not as an ancillary issue, but as a lever for development, economic connection, and the strengthening of value chains.

From the outset, the Italian Government has placed it among the main directions of the Plan, alongside the other strategic pillars, and in recent months it has clearly strengthened the link between the Mattei Plan and the European Global Gateway, including in the field of digital infrastructure and interconnections, such as the Blue Raman Cable and the AI Hub for Sustainable Development. The 2025 joint summit between Italy and the European Commission on the Mattei Plan and Global Gateway, together with the subsequent acts, made one clear choice visible: to make Italy one of the drivers of Europe’s projection in Africa, including in the digital field. In this context, the Digital Flagship of the Mattei Plan, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation with the technical support of the UNDP Rome Centre, is the flagship programme that turns this vision into concrete projects. In recent months, the initiative has worked on the construction of shared projects with partner countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Senegal, and Ghana, through a co-creation method that brings together, thanks to the diplomatic network of Italian Embassies, AICS, and the presence of UNDP Country Offices, key actors such as Italian institutions, African governments, representatives of public and private companies, technical expertise, innovation ecosystems, and local value chains. The political value of the programme lies precisely here: not in proposing standard solutions, but in building, together with partner countries, digital pathways that are consistent with their priorities for economic growth, industrialization, and social transformation.

This is the point that is also of greatest interest to the productive sector. For the private sector, digital public infrastructures are not an administrative matter: they are the architecture that reduces risk, lowers transaction costs, increases predictability, facilitates payments, services, traceability, access to credit, relations with the public administration, and the development of new markets. Where these infrastructures exist, businesses can invest better, operate more efficiently, and grow more rapidly. Where they are lacking, even the best entrepreneurial initiatives remain held back by fragmentation, poor interoperability, and regulatory weakness. In other words, digital technology becomes truly interesting for the private sector when it stops being merely technology and becomes economic infrastructure. In this framework, another decisive element emerges strongly: human capital. With the advance of the digital economy and highly automated technologies, African countries will increasingly need skills capable of supporting and enhancing these transformations. Digitalization therefore cannot be only a technological process; it must be accompanied by structured investment in skills development, training, and education systems. And it is here that Italy is playing a distinctive role. It is not merely financing or supporting individual projects, but bringing to Africa the best of its own areas of excellence: industrial capabilities, technological solutions, regulatory know-how, innovation value chains, universities, research centers, digital service operators, financial actors, and technical expertise. The Mattei Plan is beginning to bring these actors together, alongside MAECI, CDP, and other components of the Italian system, building a more orderly and more credible platform for Italy’s economic presence on the continent.

This is what makes the Digital Flagship more than a sectoral programme: it makes it an infrastructure for partnership between Italy’s strategic interests and African development priorities. At the European level, this has already produced another significant effect: a greater Italian capacity to orient and connect initiatives, priorities, and instruments within the Global Gateway framework. Italy’s role in the European Union’s Digital for Development Hub and the strengthening of the synergy between the Mattei Plan and Global Gateway show that the work of political and operational connection launched by Rome is not merely framework diplomacy, but the construction of a strategic positioning for the country system. For this reason too, in several African contexts, Italy’s profile in the digital field is now more visible, more credible, and more usable within the Team Europe approach. Against this background, the UNDP Rome Centre performs a precise and increasingly strategic function. As UNDP’s hub for supporting development finance and building transformative initiatives, the Rome Centre helps strengthen the Mattei Plan’s approach within the concrete realities of partner countries: it supports dialogue with institutions, assists in the preparation of initiatives, connects public and private actors, and contributes to structuring programmes that are bankable and implementable even in complex contexts.