para voltar à Moçambique On-line
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Editor: Joseph Hanlon
Published by AWEPA
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The number of Mozambique-related web pages is growing rapidly. The best
directory of them is created by Wim Neeleman and has a new web address:
Also very good is the Mozambique web page produced by the university computer center - CIUEM - Centro de Informática da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane:
The Mozambique News Agency (AIM) does a daily news summary in Portuguse, with an archive going back to the beginning of the year:
For up to date information on the floods and their aftermath, in Portuguese
Addresses, telephone & fax numbers (and some web pages and e-mail addresses) for all ministries:
Even the Mozambique telephone directory is on-line:
Mozambique National Human Development Report 1999; Moçambique Relatório
Nacional do Desenvolvimento Humano 1999, UNDP & SARDC, Maputo, July 2000.
(Editor Antonio Gumende, Coordinator António Francisco) Available from the
UNDP office in Maputo.
Perhaps the most important book to be published this year in Mozambique,
this report graphically shows the huge differences in Mozambique and
outlines in stark terms just how Maputo-centred the economy and growth is.
Just a few statistics comparing Maputo city with the poorest and least
development province, Zambézia, tell the story:
The report also produces a Human Poverty Index which is disaggregated by
province, and shows much sharper divisions than the government's own
poverty study published two years ago (reviewed below). Both studies show
about 60% of Mozambicans living in poverty. The government study showed a
range from 48% in Maputo city to 88% in Sofala. The UN study shows a range
from only 21% of Maputo cities residents living in poverty to 68% in Cabo
Delgado. Where the government study showed poverty concentrated in the
centre, with three provinces (Tete, Sofala and Inhambane) with over 80%
living in poverty, the UN study shows a clear increase in poverty as you
move north, from 37% in Maputo province to 52% in Inhambane to only 55% in
Sofala to 65% in Zambézia and 68% in Cabo Delgado.
The report also challenges the growing emphasis on peasant farm income by
arguing that wage labour is far more important than previously stated as a
source of income and that the number of wage labourers is significantly
understated. Raising wages and creating jobs must play a more central role
in any development strategy.
The IMF and World Bank repeatedly stress Mozambique's high rate of growth,
but this report shows that too much of that growth is staying in Maputo.
More intervention will be required if the gap between Maputo and the rest
of the country is not to continue to grow.
Understanding Poverty and Well Being in Mozambique, the First National
Assessment (1996-97), Ministry of Planning and Finance (MPF), Eduardo
Mondlane University, and International Food Policy Research Institute, Dec
1998. (Available from MPF, also in Portuguese.)
Based on the 1996-97 National Household Survey of more than 8000 families,
this is the first attempt to determine levels and depths of poverty. It
takes into account families' own production. The study develops different
poverty lines for urban and rural areas in each province, based on
essential food and non-food consumption. This ranged from a poverty line
of 3359 MT per person per day in rural Nampula (in late 1996 this was 29
US cents per day) to 8714 MT in urban Maputo province (then 75 US cents
per day). By contrast, the UNDP Human Development Report defines human
poverty not by income or consumption but by levels of deprivation relating
to malnutrition, access of clean water, etc. This report also does a very
interesting provincial breakdown of poverty and extreme poverty.
The report is interesting because it challenges the traditional links
between female headed households and extreme poverty. And it is useful for
a whole range of other inquiry data ranging from education to how many
cashew trees families have.
Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, Government of Mozambique, 16 Feb
2000, incorporating the Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty,
Dec 1999. Available on the IMF website:
Rushed through without public consultation to meet IMF demands, the
interim PRSP is now subject to public debate before it will be agreed as a
final document later this year. Both documents recognise the regional
differences highlighted in the UN Mozambique Human Development Report, but
do not explain how the actions proposed will redress those imbalances. The
Action Plan provides detailed, albeit modest, targets for the next five
years. But these are nearly all for continuations of ongoing policies.
+ The 29 March 2000 Decision Point Document for the Enhanced Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries Initiative is also available on-line:
Eleitorado Incapturável, ed. Carlos Serra, Livraria Universitária,
Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 1999.
Carlos Serra's excellent study of the 1998 local elections,
reviewed in Bulletin 23, has now been published as a book.
Mozambique Election Update 99, Electoral Institute of South Africa,
dpottie@eisa.org.za, http://www.eisa.org.za
EISA's equivalent of this Bulletin. Issue 5 (April), for
example, has an interesting and detailed article on the national election
campaign in Manica.
President Joaquim Chissano has named a larger cabinet, with 24 ministers.
Three are women. Only 6 ministers retain their posts, while 2 shift to new
ministries; 4 vice-ministers are promoted and there are 12 new faces.
Four ministries have been split in half:
The Social Action Ministry becomes the Ministry of Women & Social Action.
The 24 ministers and their previous positions are:
Eduardo Mulembwe was re-elected speaker of parliament (Presidente da
Assembleia da República). He was nominated by Frelimo; Francisco Masquil,
former Frelimo Central Commitee member and leader of the opposition group
in the Beira city council, had been nominated by Renamo.
Armando Guebuza remains head of the Frelimo parliamentary bench. Renamo-UE
selected Ossufo Mize Quitine to replace Raul Domingos as leader of the
opposition bench. Deputy head is José Samo Gudo, a member of one of the
small parties in the Renamo-UE coalition, Fumo.
Five former ministers were elected to parliament: Eneas Comiche, Arnaldo
Nhavoto, Aurélio Zilhão, Alfredo Gamito, and Mateus Katupha (who becomes
press spokesman).
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