The Steering Committee of the project to support the partnership between Cabo Verde’s Center for Renewable Energy and Industrial Maintenance (CERMI) and the Luxembourg Competency Center held its second meeting in the city of Praia, this morning. Said partnership began in January of this year and is expected to last for 3 years, being financed by the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

The meeting served to take stock of the program’s progress in all its areas. The development of the legal stages of the process, the concrete actions already taken and the project’s financial management were analyzed, with all participants assessing it positively.

During the opening ceremony, the Chargé d’Affaires of the Luxembourg Embassy in Praia highlighted the project’s innovative nature, noting that, although the two governments are involved, it does not embody a classic cooperation. Rather, it “seeks to facilitate a strategic association between two entities that create a Public-Private Partnership, (…) based on parity, equality and mutual trust.”

According to Angèle da Cruz, “the innovative nature of the project and the goal of ensuring the strictest balance and equity between the partners are highly valued” by the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, in particular by its Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, who recently visited CERMI, so “they will inspire” the future of relations between the two states.

The opening ceremony of the Steering Committee’s meeting was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, for whom what is at stake in this partnership is the “diversification of the Cabo Verdean economy,” because “the country cannot be anchored in the tourism mono-culture,” which does create jobs, “but often unskilled and low-paying ones.”

“We cannot allow our young graduates, engineers and technicians to work in sectors that do not match their qualifications,” said the official.

Given that Cabo Verde is positioning itself as an industrial and commercial platform, “it is not possible,” he said, “to achieve that goal without a substantial reduction of certain factors, particularly energy.” Therefore, we must “invest in energy efficiency and the adoption of technologies and solutions that allow such reduction, and have an industrial platform in Cabo Verde that creates jobs and new opportunities” especially for young people.

“This is where the partnership with Luxembourg comes in, in two areas that are crucial and interconnected: quality education and vocational training on all islands and renewable energy. The Government must do two important things, which are to prepare the Cabo Verdean youth – an area in which we have had strong support from Luxembourg – and make room for investors and companies to create jobs for these sectors in the future,” said Olavo Correia.

As regards the project in question, the government official said it is “very important for CERMI to have this type of cooperation with more experienced institutions and to be able to create conditions, in this case with Luxembourg financing (around € 4 million), to develop skills aimed at providing services in Cabo Verde and also to export them to the world, especially to our subregion.”

At the opening of the works themselves, the Chairman of CERMI’s Board of Directors considered some of the most important aspects of the project, as well as its expected impact on the institution’s future and its relationship with the Cabo Verde Competency Center (3C).

“Energy transition, the creation of a service hub in Cabo Verde, CERMI’s technological and financial sustainability, the introduction of European standards in the training it provides, and the materialization of the concept of technological campus” were some of the aspects Luís Teixeira considered “innovative.”

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