This strategic plan, approved at an extraordinary meeting held in the Portuguese capital, "will guide future community cooperation" in the field of the multilateral Convention on Social Security, which was approved in Benguela last year, under the presidency of Angola, "and was elaborated with eight axes that will facilitate the coordination of Member States", Manuel Lapão, Director of Cooperation at CPLP, told journalists at the end of the meeting.
"Today [Friday] was the first meeting where what was being done and the consolidation of this progress was assessed," he said.
The CPLP multilateral Social Security Convention is not yet in force because, according to CPLP rules, there must be ratification in three countries and currently only Portugal and Timor-Leste have ratified it.
"In 2024, possibly in 2025, this ratification should come into force because Brazil and Cape Verde" are taking steps in this direction, he explained.
According to the Minister of Public Administration, Labor and Social Security, Teresa Rodrigues Dias, "the countries are aligned" and there is "great concern around the implementation and/or entry into force of the multilateral Convention", which will have to be preceded by a administrative agreement.
"At this moment, the administrative agreement is practically closed, and the third technical meeting was today [Friday]. Of its 18 articles, all that remains is to consolidate the 11th, the most difficult, because it concerns the payment of installments [ social services] abroad", declared Manuel Lapão.
According to Manuel Lapão, there are countries with difficulties in exchange rate fluctuations and, according to the universal principle, pensioners cannot be penalized.
"There is only one article left, we hope that by September [date of the next CPLP meeting, in Brazil] we will be able to close this administrative agreement, which will also be insufficient without the forms that people fill out with their data, so that in the destination countries they have the possibility of being paid", he explained.
This mechanism, when it comes into force, allows the totalization of pensions, that is, the pensions from the various countries are added together and the total is received in the current country where you reside.
For minister Teresa Rodrigues Dias, "it was a big step" that was taken "in labor mobility" and this path must be taken "always with small, certain and structured steps".
Regarding another topic on the agenda, the 2021-2025 Action Plan for Combating Child Labor, the minister declared that "almost all Member States, in their interventions, took stock of the work carried out internally".
"We learned that African countries, above all, where the sensitivity of this topic has been most targeted, gave very notable scores", said the minister.
According to Teresa Dias, Angola, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe had very significant data in their presentation.
"There has been a great improvement and these are sensitive issues that our countries are going through, especially because they involve African habits linked to work as support for families and we have to work internally with these families, with our own support, so that these habits are mitigated and the human rights respected and that our children's intellect can be developed at school", she concluded.
