The President of the Republic of Cape Verde, José Maria Neves, said this Friday that the archipelago “will always need Portugal’s help”, noting that it has been “an extraordinary partner” in helping the African country.
Cape Verde will always need the help of Portugal and Portugal has been an extraordinary partner of Cape Verde”, said José Maria Neves, in a panel shared with the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, which closes the Eurafrica Forum, which ends today in Carcavelos , on the outskirts of Lisbon.
“EITHER the level of relationship that exists is excellent and in periods of drought we have had enormous support from Portugal, now during the pandemic and from the first moment, first in support of the tests, we had strong support in the vaccination campaign”, he exemplified.
The Cape Verdean head of state also highlighted the support given to the economic recovery program. “We were able to quickly negotiate the debt issue to reschedule payments and ease debt service, and now we are discussing higher and more sensitive issues in terms of managing this transition period,” he said.
José María Neves assumed that Cape Verde is experiencing an “extremely difficult” momentremembering the successive years of drought, the pandemic and the regional limitations that affect the archipelago.
In institutional terms, things work, there is good governance and political conditions, but from a social and economic point of view the situation is extremely difficult due to successive years of drought, the pandemic, and also international instability, particularly for the war in Ukraine,” said the head of state.
“We are in a difficult context in West Africa, where we have maritime piracy, there is political instability in some countries, there is terrorism in the Sahel corridor, the context is very difficult and the drought and the pandemic brought economic devastation to the country, in 2020 we lost 15% of GDP, unemployment increased, inequalities as well as poverty and it is in this difficult context that we often look for simplistic answers”, he warned.
Cape Verde needs 80 million euros, which it will seek “with different alliances, with the African Development Bank, with the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, to discuss a set of private investments in the energy transition and with the different countries, namely Portugal”, added the head of state.
José Maria Neves recalled the idea of transforming debt into investments in renewable energies, in the field of energy transition and in the blue economy, highlighting the objective of moving from 25% of renewable energies to 50% penetration in 2030.
The solution now is to accelerate the rate of penetration of renewables and reduce dependence on fossil fuels and open up to take advantage of the sea of opportunities that exist in the Cape Verdean sea and thus be able to guarantee the diversification of the economy within the framework of the government’s strategy, which is to have an international center for the provision of services”, underlined the President.
The head of state acknowledged that “since the country does not have traditional natural resources, everything possible is being done to substantially increase the penetration of renewables.”
“Fortunately we have wind, sun and sea,” he concluded.
Source: Observadora
