ABSTRACT
Since 1991 Cape Verde has been engaged in an ambitious programme of political and economic reforms named Mudança. The economic programme began to be implemented after the victory of the right-wing political party, the MPD (Movimento para a Democracia), in the first multi-party elections in early 1991.1
The ambition of the new government was to put an end to one and a half decades of socialist rule and to favour the development of an economy open to international trade and based on a large and dynamic private sector. The purpose of the reform programme was also to boost economic growth, so as to increase the living standards of the Capverdean population, to reduce poverty and to curb the severe macroeconomic imbalances. The eight years that have passed since the start of reform policy permit a more definite evaluation of reform policy in Cape Verde. The main purpose of this chapter is therefore to evaluate the design and economic outcome of the reform programme. The reform policy faces domestic constraints, many of them of structural, institutional and political character, which put limits on the reformability and growth of the Capverdean economy. A secondary purpose of this chapter is to highlight these constraints.
