[{"bbox": [82, 105, 1147, 185], "category": "Text", "text": "inequalities. The action contributes to the EU Gender Action Plan III², specifically to the thematic objective 'Addressing the challenges and harnessing the opportunity offered by the green transition and the digital transformation'."}, {"bbox": [82, 211, 1147, 266], "category": "Text", "text": "The Overall Objective (Impact) of this action is to contribute to sustainable development, poverty reduction and an inclusive green growth model."}, {"bbox": [82, 290, 608, 319], "category": "Text", "text": "The Specific Objectives (Outcomes) of this action are to:"}, {"bbox": [120, 345, 1147, 400], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Reduce extreme poverty, inequality and exclusion, while supporting gender equality policies including through girl's education;"}, {"bbox": [120, 401, 971, 429], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Improve public finance management (PFM) and domestic resource mobilisation (DRM);"}, {"bbox": [120, 429, 822, 457], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Enhance policy reforms conducive for an inclusive green growth model."}, {"bbox": [82, 480, 1147, 642], "category": "Text", "text": "Government and national entities will be in charge of reaching the targets on the agreed variable tranche performance indicators in the respective result areas. The EU Delegation will, aside of the general eligibility criteria, closely monitor and assess the performances which will determine the disbursement size of the variable tranches. Throughout the implementation of this SDG contract, a continued policy dialogue is conducted, both bilaterally and in the context of the semi-annual joint Budget Support Group (BSG) reviews. These exchanges will be supported with a dialogue at political level."}, {"bbox": [82, 641, 1147, 696], "category": "Text", "text": "The action will also contribute to several pillars of the TEI \"to green Cabo Verde\", a separate but related intervention, namely to pillar 1 'Green tourism, green jobs', pillar 2 'sustainable energies', and pillar four 'blue economy'."}, {"bbox": [72, 748, 304, 782], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2. RATIONALE"}, {"bbox": [72, 811, 204, 839], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### 2.1 Context"}, {"bbox": [82, 881, 1147, 962], "category": "Text", "text": "Cabo Verde (CV) is a functioning democracy with good standards of rule of law, governance, and a positive record on Human rights respect. The country has stable political institutions and a well-functioning multiparty parliamentary democracy since 1991, being considered a Good Governance reference in the African Region."}, {"bbox": [82, 971, 1147, 1134], "category": "Text", "text": "The EU's longstanding relations with Cabo Verde gained impetus with the establishment of the EU-CV Special Partnership in 2007. The Special Partnership has the broader ambition of achieving technical and normative convergence with the EU and of increasing cooperation around key common interests such as: good governance, economic development, security, stability and regional integration. The national strategic Plan for Sustainable Development (PEDS 2017-2020) and the more recent 'Ambition 2030' country strategy match with the EU Commission priorities, including the EU Green Deal strategy and the Alliance for Sustainable Growth and Jobs."}, {"bbox": [82, 1144, 1147, 1332], "category": "Text", "text": "Despite its lack of natural resources (including water) Cabo Verde reached lower middle-income status in 2008. It remained stranded in its lower middle-income status since 2008, and only after 2017 it began to experience economic growth combined with successful contention of the inflation, improvement of macro-economic indicators and poverty reduction. EU support and strong multi-level relation with national authorities and stakeholders contributed to these remarkable achievements - including achieving most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. The country's economy has, however, suffered from uneven growth and increasing public debt for most of the last decade, mainly due to the reduced access to funding sources that comes with Low-to-Middle Income Country (LMIC) status."}, {"bbox": [82, 1342, 1147, 1554], "category": "Text", "text": "The recent positive trend (2016 - 2019) ended drastically with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Being a tourism dependent Small Island Development State (SIDS), Cabo Verde is one of the hardest hit countries in terms of economic impact. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) plunged -14% in 2020; Public debt /GDP rose from 125% in 2019 to an estimated 140.9% in May 2021 (IMF). The financial affordability of mitigation and support measures, including critical cash transfers to households and individuals, and the medium term containment of fiscal and balance of payments' risks, are part of the urgent challenges. The significant level of remittances from the diaspora, worth about EUR 188 000 000 or 12.7% / GDP in 2020, reflects the instrumental role that migration plays in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis."}, {"bbox": [72, 1636, 444, 1662], "category": "Footnote", "text": "² JOIN (2020)17 final of 25.11.2020."}, {"bbox": [1050, 1663, 1158, 1688], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 4 of 28"}]