Farnesina –
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hon. Antonio Tajani, met today at the Farnesina with Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, co-president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and creator of Breakthrough Energy.
Development in Africa, food security, global health, energy transition and innovation: these are the main topics of the discussion.
“The Italian Presidency of the G7 will place the issue of development at the top of the agenda of the large liberal democracies. We attribute a central role to the promotion of development in Africa, certain that the stabilization of the region cannot ignore its prosperity” stated the Vice Premier, adding that “the economic growth of the African continent will also have positive effects on Italian exports, an extraordinary driving force of growth for our country”.
During the meeting, the need for a pragmatic approach in the fight against climate change, the importance of new international investments in the field of health and the positive effects on the growth of technological innovation, in particular artificial intelligence, were also discussed.
“We want to strengthen collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, already active for years, in particular within the Sahel Alliance, an international platform for strengthened collaboration between donors active in the Sahel region,” added Tajani.
“Italy is at the forefront of international processes promoting greater coordination on AI. As rotating President of the G7, we will maintain a human-centred ethical approach, paying particular attention to mitigating the impact that the use of artificial intelligence could have on the labor market,” she added.
Finally, the Deputy Prime Minister shared the stages of our country’s path – which has all the conditions to be a European hub for renewable energy – towards the energy transition, reiterating the objective of progressively eliminating net CO2 emissions while preserving employment and competitiveness through a flexible and technologically neutral approach.
To this end, latest generation nuclear power will play a fundamental role – a topic that is particularly close to the heart of Bill Gates, who is committed, through some of his companies, to the development of the sector. “The Government will continue to invest in scientific-technological research on nuclear power, in collaboration with the main partners,” concluded Tajani.
