There is a date and there is a place: February 13, 2026, in Addis Ababa.
It could be a milestone in relations between Italy and Africa, a moment when words cease to be promises and begin to become habits. Not slogans. Not press conferences. Habits.
This is where we will see whether a ‘vision’ is just a stage formula, a show without an audience, or a path that someone is really following, even when there are no cameras around.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will be at the African Union conference, taking advantage of the presence of its leaders to follow up on the Italy-Africa summit in Rome.
The Mattei Plan, desired and described by Meloni as a paradigm shift, is now at precisely this delicate point: that of continuity. Of withstanding time, elections, political cycles, and geopolitical fads.
And if there is one place where this continuity takes concrete form, with all its limitations and ambitions, it is Kenya.
Here, on the Nairobi-Rome axis, something has been built in recent years that resembles a relationship more than a project. A stable dialogue, made up of meetings, protocols, schools, hospitals, laboratories, forums, and memoranda. And mutual trust that cannot be bought, but is slowly accumulated.
On the one hand, there is President William Ruto, pragmatic, obsessed with development and numbers. On the other, there is Meloni's Italy, which has decided to invest in Kenya as a strategic partner and not simply as a recipient of aid.
In between, there is a dense network of officials, researchers, technicians, diplomats, teachers, doctors, and engineers. People who do not make the headlines but keep relations alive.
The last stage of this journey was Anna Maria Bernini's mission. A visit that, rather than an event, seemed like a field test.
Nairobi. Between endless traffic and buildings that grow faster than certainties. Between digital startups and sudden blackouts. Between skyscrapers and street vendors.
The Nairobi AI Forum was held here, with the support of Italy and the United Nations Development Programme. It was not a showcase of technological illusions, but a serious attempt to discuss artificial intelligence, data, training, rules, and responsibility. A major initiative launched by Italy, with UNDP and Kenya, which attracted more than 650 professionals, including Italian digital companies, and generated more buzz than ever before about the future of technology in Africa, with 1 million hashtags, thousands of website views, and interactions. But above all, it generated discussion, awareness, and trajectories toward a concrete future.
At the same time, Bernini signed the Memorandum on universities and research, focusing on mobility, joint projects, and scientific infrastructure. Space, climate, renewable energy, health, agri-tech. Big words, which here must become everyday tools.
He visited Malindi, the space base, the new maternity ward. A place where the Mattei Plan ceases to be geopolitics and becomes concrete assistance. Where statistics on maternal mortality meet faces, stories, hopes.

He inaugurated the headquarters of the Med-Or Italian Foundation for Africa. A hub for dialogue, research, connections. Another piece of a presence that does not want to be episodic.
He participated in the Italy-Africa Roadshow with Strathmore University, involving universities and businesses.
He supported renewable energy programs with the Enel Foundation and RES4Africa.
None of this makes headlines like an international summit. It does not generate bombastic headlines. But it builds ground.
This, perhaps, is the real challenge of the Mattei Plan: not to be a sum of projects, but a fabric.
A plot that brings together Algeria and Egypt, Morocco and Mozambique, Ethiopia and Kenya. It puts billions on the table, yes, but above all, it puts method on the table. Listening. Co-financing. Shared responsibility.
Not charity. Not preaching. Not disguised neocolonialism.
Imperfect cooperation, of course. Slow, at times. Hampered by bureaucracy, delays, misunderstandings. But real.
In Kenya, this is clearly visible.
In digital technology, where innovation can become emancipation or new inequality.
In education, where student mobility is not a brain drain, but a circulation of skills.
In healthcare, where a maternity ward is worth more than a hundred speeches about Africa ‘growing’.
In energy, water, agriculture, services.
And also, indirectly, in migration.
Because, we are stating the obvious when we say this, but today the line between the obvious and the absurd is thinner than a tuft of blond hair: when a society functions a little better, leaving is no longer the only option.
Today, the Mattei Plan is valuable for what it manages to resist.
Resisting changes in government.
Resisting cynicism.
Resisting the temptation to turn everything into propaganda.
Those working on the dossier say it clearly: Africa expects continuity. It would not understand a sudden escape. It would not forgive yet another promise that evaporated.
Kenya, in this sense, is a testing ground.
If cooperation here holds up, grows, and evolves, then the Plan has a future.
If it runs aground here, then it was just a well-told interlude.
For now, the signs are positive.
The Ruto-Meloni axis is working.
The institutions are talking.
The projects are moving forward.
Relationships are consolidating.
It is not a fairy tale. It is slow work.
Between an algorithm and a delivery room. Between a memorandum and a bumpy road. Between a startup and a school without laboratories.
This is how you build a mature foreign policy on the youngest continent in the world.
Without rhetoric. Without illusions. Without shortcuts.
With the patience of bricklayers and the long memory of those who know that in Africa, presence counts more than proclamations.
And the Mattei Plan, in Kenya, for now, is here to stay.