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Introduction

The Republic of Cabo Verde and the Grand Duchy have long-standing relations, mainly founded upon development cooperation links. There have been about 15 high-level visits, including the visit to Cabo Verde by His Royal Highness Grand Duke Henri, in March 2015. Luxembourg has been working in this partner country since 1993 and is now one of the main donors to Cabo Verde, because since it joined the category of middle-income countries in 2008 most other donors have withdrawn.

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In terms of recent bilat­er­al vis­its, Min­is­ter Fay­ot vis­it­ed the coun­try from 14 to 19 Feb­ru­ary 2020. This was his first work­ing vis­it to a Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion part­ner coun­try in his capac­i­ty as Min­is­ter for Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs. He was accom­pa­nied by Car­ole Dieschbourg, Min­is­ter for the Envi­ron­ment, Cli­mate and Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, and by Claude Turmes, Min­is­ter for Ener­gy and Spa­tial Plan­ning. The visit’s main aim was to strength­en bilat­er­al dis­cus­sions con­cern­ing the meth­ods for imple­ment­ing the new coun­try approach’. This approach seeks, pri­mar­i­ly, to pro­vide bet­ter coher­ence between Luxembourg’s pub­lic poli­cies and increased syn­er­gy between the actions of Luxembourg’s Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion and oth­er pol­i­cy areas, in par­tic­u­lar the fight against the adverse effects of cli­mate change, and the ener­gy tran­si­tion. This aim was reflect­ed in the sign­ing of a new indica­tive coop­er­a­tion pro­gramme (ICP) enti­tled Devel­op­ment – Cli­mate – Ener­gy’, cov­er­ing the 2021 – 2025 peri­od, at the 20th part­ner­ship com­mit­tee meet­ing between Lux­em­bourg and Cabo Verde. This was held on 8 July 2020 by video-con­fer­ence. Struc­tured around five pil­lars of inter­ven­tion – Employ­ment and Employ­a­bil­i­ty, Water and San­i­ta­tion, Cli­mate Action, Ener­gy Tran­si­tion and Local Devel­op­ment – this is the first time that a coop­er­a­tion pro­gramme between Lux­em­bourg and a part­ner coun­try has com­bined devel­op­ment coop­er­a­tion actions with actions linked to the cli­mate and ener­gy tran­si­tion. The lat­ter will be financed both by the Coop­er­a­tion Devel­op­ment Fund and the Cli­mate and Ener­gy Fund, with a total indica­tive bud­get of EUR78 million.

In 2020, there were three Lux­em­bour­gish NGOs work­ing in Cabo Verde, fund­ed by the MFA: Beete­buerg Hëlleft (pri­ma­ry edu­ca­tion), ECPAT Lux­em­bourg (gen­der-based vio­lence) and OGBL Sol­i­dar­ité Syn­di­cale (trade union training).

Priority areas of intervention

  • Water and sanitation
  • Affordable and clean energy
  • Decent work and economic growth

Development of PDA

As part of com­bat­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and in order to sup­port Cabo Verde to tack­le the health, eco­nom­ic and social chal­lenges caused by the health cri­sis, Lux­em­bourg decid­ed to advance the dis­burse­ment of its sec­toral bud­get­ed aid allo­cat­ed to the field of employ­ment and employ­a­bil­i­ty to the tune of EUR2 mil­lion, while grant­i­ng addi­tion­al emer­gency aid of EUR1.6 mil­lion. This made it pos­si­ble to deploy a spe­cialised med­ical team and to fund a response plan for the municipalities.

Sim­i­lar­ly, fol­low­ing the tor­ren­tial rain that hit the arch­i­pel­ago, caus­ing con­sid­er­able dam­age to prop­er­ty, extra­or­di­nary emer­gency aid was allo­cat­ed to the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Pra­ia, amount­ing to EUR200,000.

Reference data

  • Population (MIO): 0.6
  • GNI (per resident): USD 7330
  • Human Development Index (HDI): 126/189
  • Life expectancy: 73
  • Indicative Cooperation Programme: 2021-2025

Key achievements 2020

  • Joint work­ing vis­it to Cabo Verde by Min­is­ter Fay­ot with Min­is­ters Dieschbourg and Turmes, 14 to 19 Feb­ru­ary 2020
  • Hold­ing of the 20th part­ner­ship com­mit­tee meet­ing, 8 July 2020
  • Sign­ing of the Devel­op­ment-Cli­mate-Ener­gy” ICP, with an indica­tive bud­get of EUR78 mil­lion, on 8 July 2020
  • Sup­port of EUR1.6 mil­lion for the COVID-19 response 
  • Extra­or­di­nary emer­gency aid of EUR200,000 allo­cat­ed to the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Pra­ia to deal with dam­age to prop­er­ty fol­low­ing the tor­ren­tial rain of 2020

Sector breakdown

2020