OPENING NOTE

In 2021, the Instituto Marquês de Valle Flôr (IMVF) pursued its development cooperation projects in several countries, with special emphasis on the ongoing actions in Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Gambia and Colombia, due to their dimension and impact. Our support activity towards the local authorities and civil society in Portugal remained at a high level and the established synergies with various European partners enabled to increase the scope of the undertaken activities, whether to promote global citizenship, to the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or to the reflection and debate over the global challenges that we face.

As before, we focus our activity on supporting the most vulnerable communities of the countries where we operate, on the respect towards the planet’s sustainability and having as a beacon for our actions the respect for human dignity.

Partnerships and other forms of cooperation with public, private and civil society entities in the countries and places where we operate were always present in the work carried out, increasing the effectiveness of developed activities.

Throughout 2021, the struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic remained one of the crosscutting concerns of all our developed projects and actions. The experience accumulated throughout our main fields of action, namely in health, education, generating employment opportunities, training and capacity building, and rural development, has enabled us to consolidate the Institute’s presence in various countries and to maintain its relevance in the settings in which we intervene.

In short, despite the hardships and challenges we have overcome, the outcomes expressed in this Report give us comfort to keep pursuing the purpose of IMVF.

A word of thanks is unquestionably owed to our main funders’ continued support, namely the European Union and Camões, I.P.

Finally, as it reflects the Institute’s most important asset, I renew my gratitude to our co-workers, both at the headquarters and at the projects’ implementation sites, for their commitment and professionalism.

Paulo Telles de Freitas Chairman of the Administration Board