Sectoral budget support for employment and employability in Cabo Verde

Since 2011, Luxembourg has been using budget support for the employment and employability sector. Cabo Verde is the first and only country where Luxembourg applies this aid modality. Indeed, a solid and advanced public finance management as well as the existence of a sectoral policy in Cabo Verde justify this choice. This has also allowed for a reinforcement of budget support in the Indicative Cooperation Programme 2021–2025, as well as the extension to the health sector in 2021, in view of the crisis caused by COVID-19.

Two bilateral Memoranda of Understanding on sectoral budget support were signed on 7 July 2021.

For the employment – employability sector, the main objective is to contribute to the implementation of the Cape Verdean government's strategic priorities regarding the development of employment and employability conditions in Cabo Verde, especially for the vocational training sector (including technical education), through the strengthening of employability mechanisms.

The specificities related to the financial and administrative modalities of disbursement of the sectoral budget support are agreed upon in two implementation conventions. These were signed, on the one hand, between the government department responsible for the implementation of the employment and vocational training policy and, on the other hand, the department of the Ministry of Health responsible for planning and budgeting in Cabo Verde and LuxDev. These agreements were endorsed by the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Currently, Luxembourg, the European Union, Portugal, the World Bank and the African Development Bank are providing budget support to Cabo Verde.

Within this budget support group, progress is assessed through the analysis of the matrix of sector indicators and the results achieved by each sector during the year under review. LuxDev provides technical assistance towards the embassy to enable Luxembourg to conduct a high-quality political and technical dialogue.