ALER as CPLP's Consultative Observer

The XII CPLP Summit took place on 17-18 July in Cape Verde and was attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Timor-Leste, Dionisio Babo; the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa; the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa; the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema; the President of Angola, João Lourenço; the Executive Secretary of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), Maria do Carmo Silveira; the President of Cape Verde, Jorge Carlos Fonseca; the President of Brazil, Michel Temer; the President of Guinea-Bissau, José Mário Vaz; the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi; the President of São Tomé and Príncipe, Evaristo Carvalho, and the Prime Minister of Cape Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva.

The Cape Verdean head of State, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, welcomed the participants and said that "they all point to this summit as a reference for Cape Verde, but especially for our community. We want our organization to emerge more solid, more efficient, more prestigious, closer to people and citizens, more than a community of states, a community of Portuguese-speaking people. "

The XII CPLP Summit, with the theme "Culture, People and Oceans", marks the beginning of the Cape Verdean presidency over the next two years, it was also announced that the next country to assume that position will be Angola, in 2020.

In parallel to the Summit, the XXIII Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the CPLP was held on July 16, where was granted the category of Consultative Observer to ALER and other 7 entities.

ALER received with great joy this news, considering our history of activities and collaboration with CPLP. We believe that obtaining this status brings benefits not only to the Association, but also to the CPLP and its states Member States, since it will formalize the cooperation between both entities and allow closer and continuous interaction.

We now want to take advantage of the already established contacts at international level and be able to provide concrete support in the creation of the CPLP Energy Network, and also to make efforts to increase funding to promote joint activities and projects in each of the countries of the CPLP.

We also expect, together with the CPLP, to implement more effectively our theme "Put Lusophony on the map of Renewable Energies", so that CPLP countries can benefit more and more from all initiatives and funding which has been allocated to this theme.