The Cervantes Institute opens its second permanent presence in sub-Saharan Africa this Wednesday in Abidjan

The Diplomat The Cervantes Institute will inaugurate a Cervantes Classroom this coming Wednesday, June 10, at the Félix Houphouët-Boigny University in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. This will become the institution's second permanent presence in sub-Saharan Africa, after Dakar. The opening will be formalized with the signing of an agreement between the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, and the president of the African university, Ballo Zié. The Institute stated in a press release that the opening "responds to the remarkable development of Spanish studies in Ivory Coast, one of the African countries with the highest number of students of this language." According to data from the latest Cervantes Institute Yearbook, one in ten students of Spanish worldwide is located in Africa. Ivory Coast leads the continent in Spanish language students with 798,095, followed by Benin (412,515), Cameroon (403,000), Senegal (356,224), and Gabon (200,000). In Ivory Coast, around two-thirds of students studying a second foreign language are studying Spanish. Furthermore, the academic and institutional collaboration developed in recent years has allowed the Cervantes Institute to expand its activities in the country, including the launch of AVE courses to prepare for the DELE exams and the sustained growth in the number of candidates for these official Spanish exams. CELEAS in Dakar Following the inauguration of the Cervantes Classroom, the Cervantes Institute will participate a few days later in Dakar in the second edition of the Congress of Spanish in Sub-Saharan Africa (CELEAS), which will take place on June 13 and 14 under the theme "Spanish as a Working Tool." The meeting, which will also be inaugurated by Luis García Montero, will bring together specialists, teachers, and professionals to reflect on the role of Spanish in strategic sectors such as commerce, tourism, diplomacy, education, and international cooperation. Among the participants are the Academic Director of the Cervantes Institute, Álvaro García Santa-Cecilia, who will address Spanish in Africa as an emerging reality, and the President of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Senegal, Ramón Nicolau, who will deliver the plenary address, “Spanish as a Strategic Asset in the Global Economy: Language, Market, and Soft Power,” as well as the Director of the Cervantes Institute in Dakar, Concha Barceló. The congress aims to strengthen the linguistic and professional skills of students and teachers, as well as identify new job opportunities linked to knowledge of Spanish in the African context. As a prelude to the congress, the Cervantes Institute in Dakar will host the presentation of the book “Cuadernos de Benengeli” on June 12. The work brings together a selection of contemporary short stories by authors such as Pilar Adón, Andrés Neuman or Karla Suárez in Spanish, translated into Wolof by the Senegalese publisher ÉJO éditions.

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