On small islands, distance is not only measured in kilometres. It is felt in access to finance, in the reach of institutions, and in how far global promises can seem from everyday life. In Cabo Verde, progress on the Sustainable Development Goals depends on whether those promises can take root in local economies, municipal systems, and the work people do each day.
On the volcanic islands of Fogo and Brava, that connection has begun to feel more tangible.
Between 2024 and 2025, a joint programme supported by the Joint SDG Fund set out to explore a simple, practical question. What changes when municipalities, local entrepreneurs, and financing mechanisms work together to localise the SDGs.
What emerged was a model that placed local private sector actors at the centre of development. Entrepreneurship, municipal governance, and targeted financing were linked in ways that delivered concrete SDG results in some of Cabo Verde’s most remote territories.
Local investment that stays close to home
The programme was implemented by UNDP and UNIDO, in partnership with the Government of Cabo Verde and four municipal authorities. Together, they tested a hybrid incubation approach that combined digital tools with in person mentoring, shaped around the realities of island life.
Through the Semente de Ideias incubation programme, forty early stage entrepreneurs received tailored support to develop and refine their business ideas. Nearly half of them were women. Seven ventures went on to receive seed capital, while additional micro and small enterprises benefited from in depth diagnostics and customised business improvement plans.
The programme also invested beyond individual businesses. Four young professionals were trained and embedded within municipal structures, strengthening local technical capacity and helping ensure that skills and knowledge remained anchored in the communities they serve.
By the end of the programme, all planned results had been achieved. More importantly, the work created a solid foundation for replication at national scale.
Building local systems that last
Rather than focusing on isolated activities, the programme followed an integrated territorial approach. At its heart was the creation of the Fogo and Brava Innovation Lab, the first legally recognised, multi municipal regional incubator in Cabo Verde. Designed to serve multiple municipalities across two islands, the Lab brought innovation closer to entrepreneurs and communities.
Alongside this, twenty seven business plans were developed, twelve projects reached a final stage, and seven received seed support. Through UNIDO’s upgrading methodology, enterprises carried out more than one hundred concrete improvement actions. These included better cost control, efficiency gains, and environmental practices such as solar energy use, water reuse, and simple digital management tools.
The programme focused on food systems and digital transformation, two areas that shape jobs, incomes, and resilience in island economies. By decentralising business support services, the initiative helped reduce long standing territorial inequalities and extended opportunities that had previously been concentrated in Cabo Verde’s main urban centres.
More than half of programme resources were channelled directly to local actors, strengthening municipal ownership and supporting results that can be sustained over time.
For the Joint SDG Fund, the experience in Cabo Verde shows how much can happen when resources reach people where they live and work. When local governments, entrepreneurs, and communities move together, progress feels less distant and more real. On islands like Fogo and Brava, that closeness has helped turn shared goals into changes people can actually see.
As Cabo Verde looks ahead, these islands stand out not as the edges of development, but as places where the SDGs are being shaped from the ground up. Their experience shows that when development starts locally, its impact can travel far beyond the shore.
Original publication: https://caboverde.un.org/pt/307803-do-local-para-o-global-como-o-joint-sdg-fund-est%C3%A1-impulsionar-pequenas-e-m%C3%A9dias-empresas-pme
Note:
All joint programmes of the Joint SDG Fund are led by UN Resident Coordinators and implemented by the agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations development system. With sincere appreciation for the contributions from the European Union and Governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
