MAKING AN IMPACT
Established in 1996, the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP) is a mechanism geared at linking and sharing the experience of Lusophone countries. Besides Portugal, this includes Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Brazil boasts Latin America's largest start-up ecosystem, while Portugal itself has a vibrant tech sector, and the CPLP is working hard to realize the potential of its African counterparts. Enabling cooperation across key areas, ranging from science and technology to culture, communication, and administration, impact investment capable of giving direction and depth to the respective economies of Lusophone Africa and fostering broader social welfare is hugely important. At the heart of such investment is the capacity to fuel start-ups and incubators, sectors that cause competition to flourish.
Understanding the challenges
The language barrier is a challenge, as many firms from the continent, as well as from Asia and Europe, opt to locate to neighboring English-speaking countries from which they service Lusophones. Moreover, much, if not all, of the literature in the technology sector is published in English, though mitigating initiatives have included certain developers in Mozambique publishing in Portuguese. Then there's the commercial environment, where FDI is put off by structural problems in certain nations such as exchange regimes curbing repatriation of capital, an investment staple worldwide.
Small steps toward a larger ecosystem
Orange Corners is a pan-African program funded by the Dutch government that supports entrepreneurship through a knowledge program and networking facilities to bridge start-ups and funding. Other notable developments thus far are Angola's first incubator, KiandaHub, and Acelera Angola, a news portal dedicated to entrepreneurship. In 2017, the start-up studio Bantu Makers set up shop to assist young enterprises. In Mozambique, the Maputo-based consultancy IdeiaLab is another ecosystem catalyst for local SMEs, while Cape Verde hosted Startup Weekend to galvanize interested start-ups. Two examples are the local taxi app Taxi Already and Ifome, a food delivery service. In 2013, Cape Verde also factored entrepreneurship into its education system. Though the country has suffered from brain drain, one young star who has stayed behind is Pedro Lopes, who organized the nation's first TEDx talk and went on to establish the youth organization Geração B-Bright to nurture entrepreneurial skills. In 2018, he was appointed the state secretary of innovation and technical training. That same year, Guinea Bissau's entrepreneurial ecosystem gained fame as the country hosted the global start-up competition of Switzerland-based Seedstars, where agri-tech startup 'Bandim Online' went home with the prize.
Aid to growth
Lateral thinking has proposed an “if you can spend it, it must be cash" approach in Mozambique. Given the name “donor up" by a start-up called UX Information Technologies, the idea was to channel donor money into start-ups. If this sounds familiar, it is. It's the old “teach a man to fish" in action, and was floated at the Seedstars Africa Summit in Mozambique in 2017.
Unemployment is substantial in Mozambique, and UX saw potential in establishing the job portal emprego.co.mz, which leveraged the state policy of providing jobs first to locals in order to promote fairer access to a limited pool of around 750,000 jobs. In Cape Verde, a green energy policy pledges to generate 100% of electricity from renewable resources by 2025. The “Climate Launchpad" has thus far resulted in four start-ups.
In the pipeline
As the year closed, the Lusophone countries appeared poised for a pipeline of USD5 billion in both private sector and private-public partnership (PPP) projects to stimulate economic growth. Meanwhile, a development finance compact between the African Development Bank, Portugal, and the Lusophone six was signed at the African Investment Forum in Johannesburg in November. It was noted that Lusophone countries were home to 267 million people worldwide and possessed substantial natural resources including oil and gas. These have not been exploited due to the lack of infrastructure that forthcoming investment could now reverse. The African Development Bank pledged financing guarantees to support projects also supported by Portugal, while Portuguese Development Finance Institution SOFID also pledged EUR20 million in credit lines for related projects. While the early shoots of entrepreneurial initiative are visible, forming development ecosystems will prove a long road for the Lusophone nations. One factor to watch is the policy of Brazil's new president-elect Jair Bolsonaro toward his linguistic African compatriots.
MAKING AN IMPACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Focus: Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries
Making an Impact
Established in 1996, the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP) is a mechanism geared at linking and sharing the experience of Lusophone countries. Besides Portugal, this includes Brazil, Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Príncipe.
read articleFocus
Don’t Mind the Disruption
Having won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest, Lisbon hosted the 2018 event. The relevance? Well, the contest began back in 1956 as a showcase not only of song, but of then-nascent live television broadcast technology. Today, Portugal is on the cutting edge of new technological developments.
read articleInterview
João Pedro Soeiro de Matos Fernandes , Minister , Environment and Energy Transition
The Ministry for the Environment and Energy Transition is focusing on decarbonizing the economy, valuing the territory and its habitats, and striving for a more circular use of the country's resources.
read articleInterview
António Braz Costa , General Manager, Portuguese Technological Centre for the Textile & Clothing Industries (CITEVE)
CITEVE has transformed the industry by promoting value addition, adopting the latest technologies, and ensuring the highest standards of environmental sustainability.
read articleFocus: New airport
Right Time to Seize Missed Opportunities
Portugal has seen its air traffic figures increase by as much as 80% in the last five years. As a result, its transportation infrastructure, and Lisbon's airport in particular, cannot cope with the rising numbers. A new airport project that will turn a military base into a commercial airport is now under discussion to bring much-needed relief to air traffic.
read articleInterview
Germano de Sousa , President, Grupo Germano de Sousa
Grupo Germano de Sousa's success can best be summed up by its understanding that science and medicine only really progress when technological development is combined with a deeper respect for human values and professional ethics.
read articleInterview
Isabel Capeloa Gil , Rector, Universidade Católica
Having pioneered the introduction of multiple subject areas to Portugal's tertiary education scene, Universidade Católica is aspiring to establish the country's first private medical school and introduce cutting-edge digital transformation.
read articleInterview
Carlos Guillén Gestoso , President, Escola Universitária de Ciências Empresariais, Saúde, Tecnologias e Engenharia & President, Atlantica University
Atlantica University differentiates through its company-university model and an MBA program in partnership with the University of California, Berkley, among other initiatives, to produce practical theoreticians.
read articleFocus: Public teaching staff
An Age-old Problem
Over a decade of austerity measures combined with an ageing population have seen the average age of the Portuguese public teaching staff progressively climb to one of the highest in the OECD. With frozen salaries, an extended retirement age, and precarious working conditions, today the sector faces one of its biggest challenge yet.
read articleInterview
Pedro Queiroz , General Manager, Federation of the Portuguese Agri-Food Industry (FIPA)
Portugal's economic recovery has seen its F&B sector emerge with annual turnovers of EUR16 billion, thanks to FIPA's undeterred focus on stable policies, excellent nutrition standards, and sustainability.
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