H.E Jorge Carlos Almeida Fonseca was Director General of Emigration in Cape Verde from 1975 to 1977 and Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cape Verde from 1977 to 1979.

He was a graduate teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law, University of Lisbon between 1982 and 1990, invited Professor of Criminal Law at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Lisbon in 1987 and a resident director and invited associate professor at the Law Course and Public Administration at the University of Asia Oriental, Macau in 1989 and 1990. 1991 and 1993 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first government of the Second Republic; subsequently he stood unsuccessfully as a presidential candidate in the 2001 election. He took office as President on 9 September 2011, becoming Cape Verde’s fourth president since independence in 1975.