When, at the end of 2017, the president of the African Development Bank revealed to me in an interview that the bank was going to start looking at Portuguese-speaking countries as a bloc, I confess that I didn't quite understand what he meant.

It took some time to understand how the Lusophone Compact, an innovative financing instrument for Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, demonstrates Portugal's importance not only as a trading partner, but also as a true mentor and advocate for Portuguese-speaking countries in major global forums.

Let's use the example of the Compact, which I have followed since its creation in Lisbon at the end of 2017: in November of that year, Akinwumi Adesina explained in an interview that he would begin to look at the Portuguese-speaking countries as a bloc, which would allow him to de-risk the investment and scale up projects in each of the countries, from the smallest to the largest.

Before this interview, given late in the afternoon at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Adesina had spent the entire afternoon holed up in the Ministry of Finance in Lisbon, listening to complaints, recommendations, and suggestions from the main Portuguese business groups investing in Africa.

He was very impressed with the level of knowledge of the African reality on the part of Portuguese businesspeople, he told me, and that was, after all, the Portuguese Government's objective: to show the president of the AfDB, the most powerful and most far-reaching financial institution in Africa, that Portuguese companies understand the African market, are there to stay and not to make a quick profit and leave, and that, in addition to having internationally recognized quality, they are well received in these countries, gaining a comparative advantage over other geographies.

Since then, Adesina attended a CPLP meeting for the first time, in Cape Verde, when the archipelago assumed the presidency of the Community, created the Africa Investment Forum, in which he dedicated an entire session to Portuguese-speaking countries, spent a morning in Busan, South Korea, during the Annual Meetings, presenting the project to Portuguese-speaking African countries themselves, and presented this initiative several times as an example of regional integration, despite the territorial discontinuity of the PALOP.

Six years later, with a turbulent re-election and a devastating pandemic in the middle, the 'courtship' is beginning to bear fruit, with the implementation of $70 million in credit lines in Angola and Mozambique and a special financing vehicle for Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, something that would have been unlikely to happen outside the scope of the Compact.

So where does Portugal fit in? It plays a behind-the-scenes role, as is typically the case when it comes to defending African 'brotherly countries.' Portuguese foreign policy is clearly tripartite, encompassing communities spread across the globe, Portuguese-speaking African countries, and, of course, the regional bloc Portugal belongs to: the European Union.

But there is a special 'affection', or at least increased attention when it comes to defending the interests of Portuguese speakers in international forums.

I witnessed this in Washington when I participated in the IMF Annual Meetings in 2018, in the midst of the Mozambique hidden debt scandal, and I saw how the Portuguese delegation tried, in some way, to 'excuse' what had happened and convince the then director, Christine Lagarde, that those responsible for the illegal loans were already out of the Government, and that the country deserved the Fund's trust.

At stake was the IMF's own relationship with Mozambique, a poor country that, before receiving fortunes from gas, needed, and still needs, international financing, which was cut off following the disclosure of the hidden loans.

At the World Bank, then, this attention to Africa is particularly notable, since much of the work of Portuguese officials is to influence the distribution of funds and act as defense attorneys for the PALOP countries.

I also saw, in Abidjan, at the extraordinary shareholders' meeting in 2019, how Portugal pushed for the African Development Bank's promise to channel part of the funds from its capital increase to support the poorest and smallest countries, forcing the bank's management to acknowledge that the poorest would benefit from the most aid. Among these, of course, are almost all the PALOP countries.

The friendly relationship that persists between the former colonist and the colonized countries is a blessing that is not always valued.

In Abuja, a Nigerian taxi driver was perplexed when I told him that the victories and defeats of Portuguese football clubs are a topic of conversation in cafes on Monday mornings in Cape Verde, Angola or Mozambique, and that many Africans still celebrate Ronaldo's goals for the Portuguese national team in European or World Cups, almost as if it were their own country.

Friendship, however, does not negate Portugal's interests. There's not only altruism or generosity, but also a clear and assertive self-interest. If China loudly and clearly assumes that the relationship with Africa must be win-win, Portugal also seeks advantages.

Aid in international forums is therefore not a disinterested offer. Portugal also benefits greatly from the economic growth of African countries that share the language of Camões, not only through the international expansion of Portuguese companies, essential during the financial crisis the country experienced following the debt crisis at the beginning of the last decade, but also through the support it receives.

Just ask António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, or António Vitorino, at the International Organization for Migration, who benefited from the votes and regional influence of Portuguese-speaking African countries to reach these high international positions.

Picture: © 2021 Francisco Lopes-Santos