Lisbon, Jan. 28, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal's environment and energy minister said on Tuesday that the extension of Cabo Verde's debt swap programme with Portugal for climate investment would focus on water-related renewable energy projects.
‘The governments’ decision to extend this process is going very well, with the conversion of debt until 2030, of an allocation of €42.5 million that will be earmarked for renewable energy projects related to water,' Maria da Graça Carvalho said.
She was speaking at the Portugal-Cabo Verde Economic Forum, which is taking place today in Lisbon. The forum is part of the VII Summit between the two countries, which the Portuguese government considers to be ‘historic’.
‘Today we are witnessing a historic summit, with the 100 million credit line, the mechanism for converting debt into climate action projects,’ she stressed, emphasising that the extension in time and amount does not exhaust cooperation between the two countries.
The success of the 30 or so cooperation projects between 2017 and 2023 in the areas of climate action and waste management, biodiversity, land-use planning and energy ‘have an execution rate of over 90%’, the Portuguese minister said, adding that this cooperation extended the programmes in the coming years.
‘The success of this relationship has given us the confidence to take on new and even more ambitious challenges, and in this new cooperation programme, we have decided to invest in a large-scale project, which is to support the resilience and sustainability of the drinking water distribution system in Santiago,’ Maria da Graça Carvalho added.
In her speech, she also referred to the credit line managed by Caixa Geral de Depósitos, worth €100 million for projects in the area of renewables and the blue economy and digitalisation, considering that "it is very positive for Portuguese companies and academia" and stressed that Portugal "gives, but also receives".
Cabo Verde, she concluded, ‘has a lot of experience in the desalination process, and Portugal is starting the first experience in Porto Santo, a process with a lot of hurdles to overcome, but there is a lot to learn from the speed with which Cabo Verde has done these projects on the different islands’.
The VII Summit between the two countries enabled the agreement of 30 bilateral instruments, as the Portuguese prime minister, Luis Montenegro, said at a press conference alongside his Cabo Verde counterpart, Ulisses Correia e Silva. Twenty of these instruments were signed on Monday and today, leaving 10 to be signed by various entities.
Montenegro highlighted the credit line extension for business investment projects of up to €100 million, which more than triples the previous amount. It also highlighted the programme to convert public debt into green investment through the Cabo Verde Climate and Environmental Fund—from the initial €12.5 million to up to €42.5 million by 2030—and the reinforcement of the commitment to training through the Centres of Excellence for Professional Training in Cabo Verde.
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