Cape Verde Compact Signing Ceremony Transcript
July 4, 2005
Remarks of MCC CEO Paul V. Applegarth
Boa tarde!
Your Excellency Prime Minister Neves, Your Excellencies the Former Presidents and Prime Ministers, Your Excellency the Speaker of the National Assembly and Finance Minister, Former Finance Minister Serra, Ambassador Johnson, distinguished guests, it is truly an honor to be here today on this momentous occasion, the 30 th anniversary of Cape Verde's independence, to mark it by signing this MCC Compact, and to celebrate this tremendous achievement of the people of Cape Verde.
I would like to thank all those who worked so hard to bring this Compact to completion, including His Excellency Prime Minister Neves, Ambassadors Johnson and Brito, and, of course, the dedicated MCA Cape Verde and MCC team members- all of whom have worked tirelessly to bring us to the signing ceremony today.
Cape Verde's leadership has an outstanding track record in democratic governance, transparency, and fighting corruption, and has created a world class fiscal system. These are values that best serve the people of Cape Verde, and values that Americans also hold dear and want to support and encourage. We are proud to have Cape Verde as our partner.
The Compact we have signed will provide approximately $110 million over the next five years to help Cape Verde reduce poverty, promote growth, and achieve the objectives of your Economic Transformation Strategy of moving from dependency on aid to private-sector led development.
The goal of this Compact is to address some of the immediate needs of the people of Cape Verde through a project that will improve agricultural productivity, replenish the water table, and raise the standard of living in rural areas. In the medium term, it will improve infrastructure to ease access to employment and social services, and reduce transportation costs. And over the long term, it will make the private sector more competitive and strengthen government institutions to attract more investment, and create jobs. You picked the priorities. One of the opportunities that come with the honor of being selected for MCC is the opportunity to tell us what your own priorities for poverty reduction and growth are. Therefore, I want to emphasize that this Compact program is your program.
I have had the good fortune to see much of Cape Verde in my travels, Santo Antão, São Vicente, Sal, Santiago, Fogo and even Pico do Fogo. You have a beautiful country, with much to offer the world, particularly as an example of excellent governance and transparency. Yet there is also great need, and many people still struggle day-to-day to improve the quality of life for their families. The program you have developed in this Compact, with MCC's help, has the potential to provide more than 60,000 Cape Verdeans access to markets, schools, health facilities, and to provide better access to water, agribusiness development and marketing services, and to provide access to credit for more than 70,000 people.
Cape Verde's selection for the MCA is an honor, an opportunity and a responsibility. It' s an honor because of the recognition that Cape Verde is one of only 17 countries that ranked the highest against our criteria that measure a country' s commitment to do those things necessary to reduce poverty and to help their own people, and is one of the first three to complete a Compact with MCC. It' s an opportunity, and together the people of Cape Verde have met that opportunity well in determining their priorities in developing a good proposal; and now it' s a responsibility to implement the program, to monitor its progress, and to ensure it is successful in meeting the goals you have established. The success of this Millennium Challenge Account program will depend on Cape Verde . Given the enlightened leadership of Prime Minister Neves and our counterparts on the MCA-Cape Verde team, we have confidence that Cape Verde will continue to move forward, will make real improvements in the lives of Cape Verdeans, and will continue to improve on policies and institutions that will support growth and poverty reduction.
Obrigado e parabéns !