The Ministry of the Colonies was the ministry of the government of the Kingdom of Italy

Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)

The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...

 responsible for the government of the country's colonial possessions and the direction of their economies. It was set up on 20 November 1912 by Royal Decree n. 1205, turning the Central Direction of Colonial Affairs within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Italy)

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the foreign ministry of the government of the Republic of Italy. It is also known as the Farnesina as a metonym from its headquarters, the Palazzo della Farnesina in Rome...

 into a separate ministry. Royal Decree n. 431 of 8 April 1937 renamed it the Ministry of Italian Africa after the Italian annexation of Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 and the birth of Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...

. It was suppressed on 19 April 1953 by law n. 430.