Seville, Spain, July 1, 2025 (Lusa) - Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has highlighted Portugal's commitment to relaunching international development funding, while acknowledging that it is difficult to mobilise more public funds at a time when investment is needed "on several fronts".
"We have been increasing this investment, but I really recognise that it is difficult (...), we have to invest on several fronts," Luís Montenegro told journalists in Seville, where he participated in the first day of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FiD4) of the United Nations (UN) on Monday.
The prime minister said that "there must be well-distributed resources to achieve the same goal" and argued that, for example, the planned increase in defence and security spending agreed within NATO last week is an investment in "more peace" and more developed democracies.
"Therefore, all this is linked, even when we invest in defence, we are investing in people's freedom", in "ensuring that democracies survive and develop" and that all people"‘can have dignity", he stressed.
"It is not just the cheque or the figure on the cheque that is important," said the prime minister, referring to public development aid, which in Portugal's case, as in most of the international community, falls short of the 0.7% of gross national income agreed within the UN framework.
The prime minister insisted that Portugal could increase its development aid, "whenever the country's financial situation allows", but stressed several times that the national "contribution" goes beyond financing.
In this regard, he highlighted the role of diplomacy and the "influential Portuguese judiciary" in bringing issues related to development and the fight against poverty to the debate and negotiation tables of multilateral forums, such as the European Union and the UN, but also the development of initiatives that he considered innovative and which have served as an example to other countries.
One such initiative he mentioned is the agreement to convert debt into "environmentally friendly investment" that Portugal has already implemented with Cabo Verde and is in the process of developing with São Tomé and Príncipe.
On Portuguese diplomacy, Luís Montenegro highlighted and gave as an example Portugal's own role in preparing the conference that started today (Monday) in Seville and was mentioned at the opening of the meeting.
Portugal co-chaired with Burundi the UN committee that prepared the conference and in which an agreement was reached, the ‘Seville Commitment’, signed by 192 of the 193 countries of the United Nations, which was formally adopted on Monday in the Spanish city.
The document is a commitment by the international community for the next decade on international cooperation and financing and development, which the UN estimates currently has a deficit of US$4 trillion per year.
Luís Montenegro guaranteed the Government's commitment to leveraging "more agile financing mechanisms for the current times and challenges, with a view to an even more efficient cooperation development policy".
The prime minister stressed that Portugal has a commitment not only to countries where Portuguese is the official language, but also to other states and regions in the developing world, within the framework of the European Union.
"We have been in various places, with various peoples, fulfilling a responsibility, a universal purpose from which we do not exclude ourselves," he said.
Earlier, in a speech at the plenary session of the Seville meeting, Montenegro said that "Seville is not just another international conference" and that what is at stake is "renewing the ambition" of the UN's 2030 Agenda, with sustainable development goals adopted by the international community, "or accepting a step backwards".
Portugal has chosen to "eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure peace and prosperity for all," said the prime minister, who advocated "an international financial architecture that ensures that resources reach where they are most needed with rules adapted to the most vulnerable."
"Cooperation policy in Portugal is a state policy, focused on the priorities of partner countries," he said, adding that for the Portuguese government "the answer lies in multilateralism."
Luís Montenegro was one of 60 heads of state and government who attended the opening of the Seville conference on Monday and who were invited by the King and Queen of Spain on Sunday evening to a dinner hosted at the royal palace in the city to mark the UN meeting.
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