4. Conclusion

Mozambique is fashionable with donors. "Mozambique has a series of trusted and long lasting donors making it possible to know the situation on the ground relatively well, making it possible to 'jump onto the rolling train in the right direction'," explains Guido van Hecken, Belgium's Chief of Cabinet for the State Secretary for Development Co-operation (IRIN 2002a).

Mozambique is fashionable for two reasons. First, it is one of the few "success" stories in Africa. When the World Bank wanted to justify increased aid and Bank policies in a report to the Monterrey UN Conference on Financing for Development, its report cited six successful countries where "institutional reforms have sparked rapid development". Only two were in Africa: Mozambique and Uganda (Stern 2002:xv ff).

"Second, as van Hecken notes, "it is possible to work with Mozambican authorities … They know how to work with the donor community." (IRIN 2002a)

When some donors are under pressure to increase aid to meet international targets, while others are under pressure from conservative governments to justify their aid budgets, they desperately need success stories. With so few "successes" in Africa, they don't want to rock the boat by questioning the image of Mozambique.

4.1 Giving the donors what they want

Mozambique has done three things that donors want.
1) "Controlling funds earmarked for Mozambique is easy and transparent," according to van Hecken (IRIN 2002) "Government transparency and accountability have increased," writes World Bank Senior Vice President Nicholas Stern (2002:39).
2) Mozambique has "implement[ed] key measures in financial liberalization, exchange rate reform, trade liberalization and privatisation through a series of adjustment operations," adds Stern (2002:39).
3) The rhetoric of Mozambican leaders is strongly in support of donor policies and agendas. For example, at a 25 February 2002 Commonwealth investment conference, President Joaquim Chissano cited "the success achieved in recent years with the stabilisation and control of macro-economic aggregates" and he said "the government will continue its role aimed at the creation of an economic environment favourable for the development of a strong business sector." (AIM 2002b)

I have tried to show that the Mozambican elite have become skilled in giving the donors what they want - market-friendly policies, fiscal restraint, transparency, good accounting of donor money and obsequious praise of donor policies - rather than what they say they want, while at the same time creating ever larger spaces for predation and state capture. At the 2001 donor Consultative Group meeting, there was much rhetoric about need for curbing corruption and for legal and judicial reform - but they were no different from statements made by donors for the previous decade. Although for the first time there were also statements about the banking crisis and assassinations, Darius Mans, World Bank Country Director for Mozambique, set the tone when he said "strengthening the macroeconomic environment is the key to poverty reduction." This includes a tighter fiscal policy, more trade liberalisation (in a country which is already one of the most open in Africa), and land privatisation. Both the donors and the Mozambican elite know these economic policies take precedence.

4.2 Allowing state capture by donor allies

In section 1.3 I pointed to the two very different images of Mozambique. One is of rapid GDP growth and growing exports and of transparent and clear management of donor money. The other is of worsening poverty in rural areas and of state capture, with a predatory elite that robs banks and non-donor resources, smuggles and kills, and maintains a corrupt justice system.

A symbiotic relationship has grown up between the Mozambican predatory elite and the donors to maintain the myth of the Mozambican success story. The eminent Mozambicans who challenge corruption and state capture are also the ones who, like Prakash Ratilal, challenge the image of the success of World Bank policies. To point to growing rural poverty is to say the emperor has no clothes - the donors cannot afford to listen to this message, because too much depends on the success myth.

Instead donors choose to "work with" the Mozambican predatory elite, who are allowed to rob and kill because they satisfy donors' genuine priorities. To be sure, the increasingly loud criticisms are being noticed. In his opening statement to the Consultative Group meeting, Mans said that "observers have recently expressed concerns about the shallowness of the roots of multiparty democracy in Mozambique and about the ability of elites to capture state - and private - institutions." (Mans 2001a) This is a curious statement, because in contrast to his hard economic demands, this is couched in the form of observers expressing concern. My reading is that Mans is not bothered - that he and the other donors are prepared to allow state capture by a group they can "work with".

Corruption in Mozambique - and Africa - is not a unique phenomenon. The mafia in Italy and the recent Enron scandal show how single-minded promotion of certain priorities can create a penumbra in which corruption is fostered. The donor community stresses good governance, but this paper argues that in practice it has a low priority, and that in their quest to increase aid to Mozambique and promote further "market-friendly" policy change as quickly as possible, donors are rewarding corruption and refusing to support honest Mozambicans.

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