Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, abbreviated to CPLP) is the intergovernmental organisation for friendship among Portuguese-speaking nations where Portuguese is an official language. The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to more than 223 million people located across the globe.
The CPLP was formed in 1996 with seven countries: Portugal, Brazil, the former colony in South America, and five former colonies in Africa — Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. East Timor joined the community in 2002 after gaining independence.
The CPLP is a bloc in the process of construction and the societies of the eight member nations have little knowledge of each other. One of the features of the CPLP is that its members are linked by a common language and shared cultural features, which form a bridge among countries separated by great distances and on different continents.
In 2005, during a meeting in Luanda, the ministers of culture of the eight countries declared the 5 May as the Lusophone Culture Day (Dia da Cultura Lusófona in Portuguese).
In July 2006, during the Bissau summit, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius were admitted as Associate Observers[1] along with 17 International associations and organizations considered as Consultative Observers.
When the CPLP was formed, Equatorial Guinea asked for observer status. Equatorial Guinea was a Portuguese colony from the 15th to 18th centuries and has some territories where Portuguese-based creole languages are spoken and cultural connections with São Tomé and Príncipe and Portugal are felt. Also, the country has recently cooperated with Portuguese-speaking African countries and Brazil at an educational level. At the CPLP summit of July 2004, in São Tomé and Príncipe, the member states agreed to change the statutes of the community to accept states as associate observers. Equatorial Guinea is in discussion for full membership.[2]
Mauritius, which was unknown to Europeans until the Portuguese sailed there and has strong connections with Mozambique, also obtained associate observer status in 2006.
In 2008, Senegal, with historical connections to Portuguese colonisation in Casamance, was admitted as Associate Observer.
In many developing Portuguese-speaking nations, Portuguese is the language of government and commerce which means that Portuguese speaking people from African nations can work and communicate with others in different parts of the world, especially in Portugal and Brazil, where the economies are stronger. Many leaders of Portuguese-speaking nations in Africa are fearful that language standards do not meet the fluency required and are therefore making it compulsory in schools so that a higher degree of fluency is achieved and young Africans will be able to speak a world language that will help them later in life.
