<h6><strong>The Diplomat</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The capital of Cape Verde, Praia, hosted the 4th International Conference on the Portuguese and Spanish Languages (CILPE) this week, which concluded on Wednesday with the reaffirmation of both languages as languages of the present and future, global and “essential” for the innovation and sustainable development of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking communities, which today number nearly 850 million people worldwide.</strong></h4> For two days, the 4th CILPE, promoted by the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI), brought together more than 70 specialists from twelve countries in the auditorium of the University of Cape Verde, with the participation of nearly 1,200 attendees both in person and online. At the closing ceremony, Brazilian writer Ana Maria Gonçalves, the first Afro-Brazilian woman to be a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, defended the power of language to “tell the story of who we are as a people” and the concept of Portuguese, “a way of speaking and being in the world for Afro-Brazilians” and “a tool for decolonization.” “Literature makes future opportunities infinite,” she emphasized. During the final session, it was announced that the fifth edition of the conference will return to the Iberian Peninsula and will take place in Spain in 2027. Previous editions have been held in Lisbon (2019), Brasília (2022), Asunción (2023), and Praia (2025). Since 2019, CILPE has established itself as the most influential biennial forum for debate and analysis on linguistic cooperation between Spanish and Portuguese, the most widely spoken languages in the Western and Southern Hemispheres, respectively. CILPE has had the support of the Government of Cape Verde (in the framework of the commemorations of its 50th anniversary), the International Institute of Portuguese Language (IILP), the University of Cape Verde, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), Camões - Institute of Cooperation and Portuguese Language, the Cervantes Institute, the Guimarães Rosa Institute, the Portuguese Institute of the East (IPOR) and the GRIFO plane.
