Cabo Verde

In terms of bilateral visits, the State visit to Luxembourg by the President of Cabo Verde, planned for April 2019, had to be postponed following the death of His Royal Highness Grand Duke Jean. Luís Filipe Tavares, Cabo Verde’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Communities, visited Luxembourg on 19 April and had a working meeting with Minister Paulette Lenert. This meeting was followed by Minister Lenert’s working visit to Cabo Verde from 30 June to 4 July. This was her first visit to a Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation priority partner country after taking up her post at the beginning of the year. In addition to the bilateral meetings with the Cabo Verde authorities, the visit featured an address delivered by Minister Lenert at the opening of the Cabo Verde Investment Forum in Sal, the 19th partnership committee meeting between the two countries and a visit to the achievements and development programmes currently being implemented by Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation on the archipelago.

At the partnership committee meeting the authorities took stock of the implementation of the fourth Indicative Cooperation Programme (2016-2020) and formally launched the phase of identifying a new multiannual partnership programme for the 2021-2025 period. This new programme, structured around the three interlinked themes of development, climate and energy, will be distinguished by its innovative nature in so far as it will go beyond development cooperation alone, seeking to improve consistency with the other elements of Luxembourg’s foreign policy, to strengthen the overall impact of Luxembourg’s actions and to diversify relations between the two countries. This new approach falls within the framework of the gradual implementation of a whole-of-government approach in Luxembourg’s Development Cooperation’s partner countries. This approach was decided on by the Government Council in September 2019 and is also included in the Luxembourg government’s coalition agreement for 2018-2023. Since Cabo Verde is the partner country with which relations are most highly diversified, the Government Council has designated it as a pilot country for the implementation of this new approach, starting in 2021.

As the partnership committee meeting was taking place, a budget increase of nearly EUR 2.55 million in the ICP IV was also ratified, to go to the following programmes: ‘Renewable energies’, ‘Water and Sanitation’ and ‘’Support for the 2020 general population and housing census’. With these budget increases, Luxembourg’s total investment under the ICP IV stands at nearly EUR 58 million.

In 2019, there were three Luxembourgish NGOs working in Cabo Verde, funded by the MFA - ECPAT Luxembourg (gender-based violence), Beetebuerg Hëlleft (primary education) and OGBL Solidarité Syndicale (trade union training).

Finally, in 2019, the Luxembourg company ‘Interact’ received co-financing from the MFA of EUR 100,000, under the Business Partnership Facility’s third call for projects. Interact’s project aims to optimise the performance of connected digital urban systems and networks, linked with artificial intelligence technologies.