Bringing vulnerable refugees and asylum-seekers to Italy from Africa offers a a blueprint for a genuine solution to the migration emergency, Italy's deputy foreign minister Emanuela del Re said on Tuesday.
"When institutions, civil society, which bears the entire cost of an operation, and countries of origin work together, it is not 'a drop in the ocean'," Del Re said before heading to a conference on Humanitarian Corridors at the European Parliament.
"This is a truly concrete and structured response to problems that until now an emergency approach held at bay but never really solved," she said.
Humanitarian corridors are "a genuinely effective model to manage migration" as they allow people "a long-term life plan", she said.
"Italy has built strong ties with a number of countries that genuinely want to cooperate, and with which we have created an equal partnership that enables shared development," Del Re said.
Ethiopia and Niger are examples of such countries, Del Re noted.
"But there are also countries that have yet to take this above all political step and they certainly represent a challenge to be tackled in future," De Re concluded.
