Seville, Spain, July 2, 2025 (Lusa) - Sao Tome and Principe is finalising a national development programme for the period 2025-2029 that requires funding of around €425 million for the next three years, the government said on Tuesday.
The plan, which is being finalised, “needs funding of $500 million” (approximately €425 million), focusing on human resources training, “sustainable and inclusive” growth, and responding to the impacts of climate change and state reform, said the foreign minister, Ilza Amado Vaz.
The minister was speaking in Seville at the plenary session of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, which is taking place in the Spanish city until Thursday.
Ilza Amado Vaz stressed that in today’s world, characterised by growing geopolitical and economic tensions, armed conflicts, rising extremism, and a contraction in international public development aid, the most vulnerable countries experience the greatest impacts.
These “structural vulnerabilities” of countries such as Sao Tome and Principe, a small developing island state, become more pronounced during “repeated climatic and economic shocks”.
“More than 80% of our economy remains exposed” to climate impacts, said the minister, addressing an audience representing 192 of the 193 UN countries.
Ilza Amado Vaz stressed that these impacts require enhanced poverty reduction efforts and demand greater state capacity to respond to the basic needs of the population, and called for “a paradigm shift” in international cooperation and access to resources to finance development.
The minister stressed that Sao Tome and Principe possesses “strategic potential,” “political stability,” a young population, “exceptional biodiversity”, and an advantageous geographical position in the Gulf of Guinea, and the country continues to strengthen its structural foundations.
The government stated that developing and least resilient countries require “simplified access to multilateral instruments” that enable them to mobilise more funds.
The minister also called for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to participate in their own right in multilateral forums and negotiating tables, as well as “the creation of a permanent financing window” for this group of countries.
“Progress occurs only when the most vulnerable move ahead,” she said.
The UN conference on development financing in Seville comes ten years after the previous one in Ethiopia in 2015.
The conference plenary, which ends on Thursday, formally adopted on Monday, at the start of the proceedings, the “Seville Commitment,” a commitment for the next decade on international cooperation and financing and development, which the UN estimates currently requires an additional $4 trillion annually.
MP/ADB // ADB.
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