Context
Cabo Verde’s potential for sustainable development is threatened by structural environmental, economic, and energy vulnerabilities, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the State of Cabo Verde has committed to implementing sustainable, low-carbon, and climate-resilient policies, aligning with global efforts to reduce emissions while identifying key sectors for improvement.
Key challenges include:
- Climate change impacts on fragile ecosystems, biodiversity, and land degradation.
- Socio-economic consequences, particularly for vulnerable communities, with a focus on gender equality and social inclusion.
- The sustainability of the tourism sector—representing 25% of GDP—which is highly vulnerable to climate change.
- Strong reliance on complementary industries such as water desalination, electricity, food production, and waste management, despite tourism directly contributing only 10% of GHG emissions.
To address these issues, Cabo Verde will benefit from technical assistance for developing a National Green Climate Fund (GCF) Program and a sustainable tourism strategy aimed at enhancing cross-sectoral sustainability and strengthening environmental resilience.
Project and objectives
PD Consult (consortium lead), in partnership with SETIN srl and University of Surrey, has been contracted to assist at developing the GCF Country Program in Cabo Verde, through a process that ensures systematic consultative engagement of relevant stakeholders in decision-making and through programmatic prioritization of climate change adaptation and mitigation activities in the tourism value chain (tourism, agriculture, fisheries, water, energy, transport, etc.), which includes the development of GCF project concept notes. The objective of the intervention is to strengthen national capacities in terms of inter-institutional coordination, knowledge sharing, and alignment of policy and strategic instruments.
The technical assistance was built on the mapping of climate change priorities, including the development of a range of projects (GCF), thus facilitating access to climate finance for circular and sustainable tourism interventions, focusing on three integrated approaches, namely:
- the engagement of stakeholders in a consultative process to ensure an inclusive and holistic approach to sustainable decision making.
- the development of a pipeline of national programming priorities and prioritized adaptation and mitigation activities, including the development of GCF Project concept notes; and
- the development of a GCF Country Programme for climate finance.
The GCF Country Programme will result in national climate policies, strategies, and plans, as well as greater capacity, coordination, and involvement of relevant stakeholders in the scope of activities to strengthen the country’s readiness.
Work in Progress
Between March 10th and 14th, Giacomo Cozzolino, a member of the project team and an associate of SETIN, conducted a series of bilateral meetings in Praia, Santiago Island. These meetings aimed to engage key stakeholders in discussions about programmatic priorities and climate action strategies, reinforcing the inclusive approach of the initiative.
As the project progresses, further engagement activities, technical assessments, and policy alignment efforts will continue, ensuring that Cabo Verde advances its climate resilience and sustainable tourism agenda through effective utilization of GCF resources.