Outside the official residence of Argentina’s ambassador in Pretoria is a giant-sized flag. It has distinctive light blue stripes on a white field with a golden May Sun and represents Argentina’s independence from Spanish colonial rule.
Inside the residence Argentina’s new ambassador to South Africa, Alberto Pedro D’Alotto, is settling in.
Just a few weeks into his posting he is deep in meetings with fellow ambassadors and Dirco officials and this week is in Cape Town for the State of the National Address (Sona).
D’Alotto is a career diplomat, with degrees in Law and Political Sciences. He served on his country’s Permanent Mission to the International Organisations in Geneva and the United Nations, and in the Argentine embassies in Washington and Montevideo.
He has worked in his ministry’s offices of Human Rights and Foreign Policy and Administration, and he has spent time in academia, teaching International Public Law, Human Rights and, recently, International Relations at the University of Buenos Aires.
Prior to this posting, he had only been in South Africa three times, first in 1998 and then twice in 2011 as part of a delegation in bilateral talks in Pretoria, and attending COP17, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Durban.
Throughout his career he said he followed South African issues, yet when his ministry proposed last year that he come to the country, he was surprised. However, after just 24 hours to consult with his family, he agreed and started his preparations. He is accompanied by his wife Andrea while their two adult children remain in Buenos Aires, but will be visiting later this year.
There are a range of commonalities between the two southern hemisphere countries, including agriculture and food security, mining, environmental issues, and culture, tourism, sport and human rights. D’Alotto is keen to review economic opportunities by revitalising the Bi-National Commission which last met in 2013.
Among areas of co-operation are in the field of agriculture with a direct seeding project in the Western Cape and support through the National Institute for Agricultural Technology (INTA) of the University of Pretoria’s agricultural research centre.
D’Alotto has a passion for the arts, and would like to promote exchanges with galleries in South Africa, as part of promoting culture. On the sporting side he sees opportunity for soccer clinics, and would like to see more South Africans visit Argentina, not only to enjoy its cosmopolitan capital, but experience the beyond such as the Los Glaciares National Park and Iguazú Falls, and as a gateway to Latin America.