La empresa

The Instituto Português de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento (IPAD – Portuguese Institute for Development Assistance) is the arm of the MNE which deals with overseas aid. IPAD focuses particularly on promoting the economic and social development of the Lusophone countries, especially the PALOPs. IPAD’s role is to propose and implement Portuguese overseas co-operation policy and to co-ordinate with other public bodies which are involved in this process (Decreto-Lei 204/2006, of 27 October 2006, Article 18, N.º 1). IPAD is based in Lisbon, but not located near the main MNE buildings, and employed 181 people in 2010 (IPAD, 2010: 7).

As outlined above, IPAD merged its activities with the Camões Institute in 2012 to create a new body for development co-operation and language promotion called ‘Camões – Institute for Co-operation and Language’ (Lusa, 2011; Decreto-Lei 21/2012, of 30 January 2012). This decision was part of the government’s PREMAC programme,

aimed at reducing inefficiencies in the central administration. In addition to the PREMAC restructuring, the OECD has suggested how IPAD can set about to address some of the inefficient ways in which Portugal’s development assistance programme is handled. Portugal has been urged by the OECD to undertake fewer small-scale projects and to organise its interventions under larger, more comprehensive, projects (OECD, 2010). It would appear that combining aid and language promotion can go some of the way towards linking up Portugal’s activities and providing a more efficient delivery of services with, given the goals of the PREMAC, a more streamlined administration in Lisbon.

Part of the reasoning behind this decision, why the Camões Institute and IPAD make such natural bedfellows, is that IPAD was already an organisation which was heavily geared towards playing an active part in the Lusophone world and the Camões Institute is all about promoting the Portuguese language, especially in Africa (see chapter 4). Both the Camões Institute and IPAD’s activities are centred upon the Lusophone world, but both organisations recognised the importance of the EU and have co-ordinated their activities at the European-level. The Camões Institute has latched onto European Union strategies to promote language learning and cultural policy and co-operates with the European Union National Institutes for Culture (Instituto Camões, 2011: 5). Similarly, IPAD has effectively pursued relations with the PALOPs and East Timor by making use of EU development aid resources (Interview 8, Lisbon, 2010).

It is worth noting that the organisational structure of IPAD reflects the priorities of using Europe as a source for development aid resources on the one hand, while on the other hand, being focused on prioritising Lusophone African countries as the aid recipients. As such, there is a European and Multilateral Affairs unit in IPAD and two African Co-operation units (one for Angola and Mozambique, the other for Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe) (IPAD, 2010: 6–7).

IPAD has recognised the importance of Portugal’s privileged relations, but also that it is a small and relatively poor player and that its limited resources must be targeted in order to maximise returns and achieve the best possible outcome for development, in order to enhance Portugal’s standing in the Lusophone world. In addition to working positively during Portuguese Council Presidencies to achieve Portugal’s foreign policy aims in Africa, IPAD is also committed to working through the Commission. In the immediate

aftermath of the Treaty of Lisbon coming into force, it was unclear which of the EU institutional actors would take the lead in development policy, it was a complete “grey zone” (Interview 8, Lisbon, 2010). In uncertain times, with various EU institutions vying for supremacy, it was, therefore, important for IPAD to cast a wide net in Europe for support in achieving its aims.

Portuguese development policy is now firmly located in the EU context. In practice, this involves seeking to bring matters relating to the Lusophone world to the attention of the EU. The floods in Mozambique in 2000 illustrate this clearly. The story, widely covered in Lusophone media, took some time to break into mainstream European news coverage. Led by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs Jaime Gama, Portugal flew the European Commissioner for Development to Lisbon and then on to Mozambique to witness the crisis personally. This resulted in an increase of EU aid to help deal with the humanitarian crisis from €100,000 to €25 million (Interview 13, Lisbon, 2010).

According to a Secretary of State in the XVIII Constitutional Government, if the budget for development assistance could have been increased, even by 10 per cent, then Portugal could have done a lot more (Interview 13, Lisbon, 2010). While Portuguese development policy-makers recognise that the country’s aid budget is severely limited, if IPAD did have more money at its disposal, the tendency would still be to focus on the Lusophone countries and to do more for them and to target Portuguese aid on the former colonies, rather than to cast a wider net in Africa (Interview 8, Lisbon, 2010). This is because development aid is central to Portugal’s foreign policy objectives in the PALOPs, alongside increasing business investment and enhancing political co- operation. The centrality of the Lusophone agenda to IPAD’s operations is explored in greater depth in the next chapter, which considers Portugal’s renewed African vocation.