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Linking finance, decolonization, and trade. Italy’s Mediobanca in sub-Saharan Africa, 1944–1971

ABSTRACT Research on Italy’s post-war international economic relations has so far mainly focused on European and transatlantic links. Yet, Africa played an important role in Italy’s new foreign economic policy. In the 1950s and 1960s, Mediobanca, Italy’s merchant bank, developed close economic relations with African countries mainly in three ways: through export credit, also in the form of ‘tied-aid’ credits; through equity participations in commercial banks and national development banks; through the establishment of trading companies, starting in Liberia, and expanding – or trying to expand – to former Belgian Congo, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and former Rhodesia. The article uses unpublished sources from various archives including Mediobanca’s, recently made available to the public. Via Mediobanca and its unpublished sources, the article looks at general issues such as Italy’s place in the world economy, and the interplay between Cold War, decolonization, and European integration.