Cabo Verde's Government Program Focuses on State Reform, Transport, Education, and Health

Cabo Verde's new government program outlines a vision for structural transformation towards sustainable, inclusive, and resilient development amidst rapid global changes. Key priorities include external relations, macroeconomic stability, state reform, infrastructure investments in energy, water, transport, and digital connectivity, modernization of agriculture and the Blue Economy, defense, security, and justice. The program also emphasizes human development through education, higher education, science, health, and housing, recognizing youth as a driving force and sports as a tool for inclusion.

The government aims to create a more agile and less costly state through deep reforms focused on efficiency, citizen proximity, and democratic decentralization. Proposed measures include national debate on administrative regions, reducing the number of national deputies, rationalizing public agencies, and transferring central government powers to regions and municipalities. The program pledges a rigorous fight against corruption and illicit enrichment, with enhanced declaration requirements for income and assets, an electronic declaration platform, and asset seizure possibilities. Digital governance and service decentralization are also central to this reform agenda.

In justice, the program addresses procedural delays and access issues with a multi-year investment plan for technological modernization, digitalization, and improved legal aid, setting deadlines for fundamental rights cases. Security reforms will focus on municipal police, territorialized security subsystems, criminal statistics, and a national cybersecurity policy with an incident response center. Defense and diplomacy will prioritize national interests and diaspora recognition, while ensuring media independence. Cross-cutting issues like youth employment, gender equality, biodiversity, climate action, energy transition, and water management are integrated across all policies.

Transport, both air and sea, is deemed a strategic priority for territorial cohesion and national sovereignty. The government will review maritime concession models, cap sea passage fares for residents at 500 escudos, and progressively acquire state-owned vessels, including a roll-on/roll-off fleet. Port infrastructure will be rehabilitated and expanded, with modernized digital management systems. Air transport, under the "Open Skies, Connected People" initiative, will see domestic market regulation, opening to new operators, and ensuring public service obligations on less profitable routes, with a 5,000 escudo cap for resident air travel. New airports are planned, and existing facilities modernized. Land transport will be boosted by an electric mobility program, tax exemptions for electric public transport vehicles, and a national road plan. Digital connectivity goals include 95% 5G coverage by 2030.

Education is declared an "absolute priority" to foster an inclusive, modern, and digital knowledge society. The program aims for universal access, equity, and excellence from preschool to higher education, with curriculum updates emphasizing digital skills and critical thinking. Measures include universal preschool access, enhanced support for special needs students, and foreign language introduction early on. A significant focus is placed on teacher development, with plans to gradually increase basic and secondary teacher salaries to a base of 108,000 escudos monthly, alongside automatic reclassification for advanced academic qualifications and a revised evaluation model for school directors.