This session, devoted to the African continent and the Mediterranean basin, focuses on the common challenges to ensuring stability and growth. This theme has been chosen to follow up on the issues raised in the final Declaration of the previous Tokyo Summit on 8 September 2023, calling for the commitment of the G7 countries in this direction, to strengthen the world order based on the rule of law.

The African continent and the macro-region of the ‘Greater Mediterranean' have acquired a central importance in the geopolitical developments of recent years, and the effects of the events taking place in these regions are spreading out into the rest of the world with potentially destabilising effects.

The G7 Parliaments are being called upon to be a major driving force for the growth and stabilisation of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean basin worst affected by conditions of economic and political precariousness, so that other wide-ranging objectives can also be achieved. The targets to be attained are analytically set down in such key documents as the United Nations Agenda 2030 and the African Union Agenda 2063, which lay out the guidelines for future economic, environmental and social policies, while the specific concern for the development of a more resilient and prosperous Africa is addressed in strategic programmes such as the 'Mattei Plan' recently launched by the Italian government. International cooperation intends to provide instruments able to address the causes of poverty and other endemic problems, encouraging targeted investments, strengthening infrastructure, developing entrepreneurial capacities, and liberalising trade. Enhancing the role of civil society, achieving genuine equal rights and reducing socioeconomic inequalities are further objectives to pursue in order to underpin widespread and homogeneous growth, while enabling the enormous human potential there to emerge and be fulfilled.

The economic progress that the G7 will be able to stimulate by its action will also have a positive impact on migration flows, for eradicating poverty fosters the growth of local communities and ensures that the need to survive does not cause people to move towards more affluent areas, using irregular means that expose them to the risk of abuse or even death along dangerous routes. Equally of interest are problems relating to food security and climate change, whose impact on the African continent and the areas bordering on the Mediterranean is a cause for concern, because they often trigger environmental crises.