Mozambique : News

News : Mozambique : News

Fresh negotiations to deal with the so-called outstanding issues in the unity government are expected to begin in earnest this weekend nearly two weeks after the Southern African Development Community Troika directed at its meeting in Mozambique that Zimbabwe resolves its niggling issues within 30 days.

Maputo - Four of Mozambique's provinces - Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula in the north and central Zambezia - have been declared free of landmines, the government said.

Afonso Dhlakama, leader of Mozambique's main opposition party, Renamo, has once again threatened an "incendiary revolution", because of the alleged "theft of votes" in last week's general elections.

Mozambique political process bulletin A highly unlikely 66% turnout in Tete suggests massive ballot box stuffing.

The claim that biofuels are a threat to food security comes from multinational oil companies, who fear that biofuels are a threat to their business, alleged Jose Bellini, coordinator for agrobusiness of the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Research company, EMBRAPA, in Maputo on Thursday. (AllAfrica)

The Southern African Railways Association (SARA) held its 29th board meeting in Maputo on Friday, bringing together railway managers from across the southern African region. (AllAfrica)

The World Bank has provided a 110 million US dollar credit to Mozambique as direct budget support, under an agreement signed in Maputo on Friday by Planning and Cooperation Minister Aiuba Cuereneia and the World Bank representative in Maputo, Luiz Tavares. (AllAfrica)

Mozambique is the biggest beneficiary of the ProAfrica programme, a research initiative of the Brazilian government, involving scientists from various African countries. (AllAfrica)

The Political Commission of Mozambique's main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, began an extraordinary session in the northern city of Nampula on Thursday to define the party's future after its crushing defeat in the general and provincial elections of 28 October. (AllAfrica)

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Thursday swore into office Lucia do Amaral and Irene Afonso as Assistant Attorney-Generals. (AllAfrica)

The supposedly mysterious disease that has been claiming victims in Tsangano district, in the western Mozambican province of Tete, has been identified as typhoid fever, reports Friday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias". (AllAfrica)

The former chairperson of the Mozambican Airport Company (ADM), Diodino Cambaza, on Thursday admitted that irregularities had occurred while he was running the company, but tried to shift the blame onto the shoulders of successive financial directors. (AllAfrica)

This paper examines how environmental objectives are pursued by donors in a context where aid delivery mechanisms are changing. It cites General Budget Support (GBS) as an example of an increasingly important aid instrument that emphasises domestic commitment to achieve better environmental outcomes. Examples of the use of GBS are given for the cases of environmental mainstreaming in Mozambique and donor harmonisation in Ghana. Five key areas are highlighted which require varying blends of aid instruments for (eldis.org)

How might open, distance and flexible learning (ODFL) mitigate the affects of HIV and AIDS on young people and help meet their learning needs? This study explores the possibilities of ODFL through an examination of some of the key initiatives being undertaken to translate national HIV/AIDS policy into practice in Mozambique and South Africa. It draws on interviews and focus groups with young people affected by HIV/AIDS many of whom are out of school along with policy and strategy documents, agency reports and (eldis.org)

The document reports on a fisheries access agreements workshop that was conducted in June 2005 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This workshop was the fourth in a series designed to promote sustainable access agreements and regional collaboration. The report gives a background on the African Marine EcoRegion and the rights of coastal States as well as highlighting national and international perspectives and experiences with fisheries access agreements. The countries affected by fisheries access agreements in (eldis.org)

This report is the outcome of a FAO workshop on 'Effective and Sustainable Seed Relief Activities', convened 2628 May 2003. The aim of the workshop was to improve the effectiveness of seed relief interventions and the contribution they can make to sustainable improvements in seed, food and livelihood security. The report underlines the importance of farmer choice about crops and varieties for improving the effectiveness of seed relief efforts by the UN and other agencies. The report includes: a (eldis.org)

Cotton is a rare economic success story in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), generating cash incomes for millions of smallholder households and allowing the continent to capture a rising share of world trade in the crop. There are, however, concerns that declining prices and costs of inputs could threaten these positive outcomes. With cotton sector reform in much of SSA a decade old, it is now possible to begin learning from experience. This paper assesses the record of five countries in southern and eastern Africa: Tanzania, (eldis.org)

Charities and private agents collect large volumes of used clothing from consumers in developed countries. Although much of this is sold back to customers in charity shops, a certain amount is exported. In fact, 64.5% of used clothing exports are absorbed by poor countries - often generating incomes and yielding government revenues. It has recently come under attack from charities and governments, who argue that the trade discourages the growth of local textile markets. This paper seeks to document the channels and (eldis.org)

The paper suggests that nutritional monitoring needs to be complemented by information on the sustainability of household coping behaviour. Unfortunately, very little such information has become publicly available. Food prices and market impacts varied widely across the region. Malawi created a major problem of oversupply, whilst in Zambia the private sector imported substantial quantities of grain when needed. Mozambique provides evidence that private sector import can happen on a regular basis (eldis.org)

This report presents the findings of an internal progress review of two projects being implemented within the Bazaruto Archipelago National Park (BANP) in Mozambique. The two projects under review are the Multiple Resource Use Project (MRUP) and the Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) project. The aim of the review was to assess the progress of the two projects towards their stated objectives and outputs, to document what has been done, to identify any constraints hindering progress, and to provide (eldis.org)

The Mozambican government and the publicly owned National Hydrocarbon Company on Thursday signed two contracts under which ENH is granted concessions to distribute and market natural gas in the northern part of Inhambane province, and in Maputo city and the adjacent district of Marracuene.

Mozambican Brazilian, and Southern African business people are meeting for two days in Maputo to look into investment opportunities for producing biofuels, particularly ethanol, from sugar cane in Mozambique. (AllAfrica)

The Mozambican government and the publicly owned National Hydrocarbon Company (ENH) on Thursday signed two contracts under which ENH is granted concessions to distribute and market natural gas in the northern part of Inhambane province, and in Maputo city and the adjacent district of Marracuene. (AllAfrica)

Mozambican Education Minister Aires Aly said in Maputo on Wednesday that though there are still problems of access of children to school, the main challenge to the country, at national level, is about the quality of education. (AllAfrica)

Mozambique's former Transport Minister, Antonio Munguambe, on Wednesday admitted that he had requested a large loan from the publicly owned airports company, ADM, to pay school fees for his children studying in South Africa. (AllAfrica)

What role can a traditional tree crop play in food and nutrition security in arid regions? This joint study reviews and documents the local knowledge base on the Mungomu tree in the district of Macossa, Mozambique, and establishes whether it varies according to gender, socio-economic status and generational differences. The study also looks at how the nut from the tree is used by local people and at its importance for food security.. The nut, known in English as the Manketti Nut, is known to supply up to three quarters of the (eldis.org)

Assesses the process of land registration in peri- urban areas of Mozambique and its outcomes for poor and marginalised groups. The research finds that there is little awareness of land registration processes on the part of low-income groups. The individual registration process is slow and bureaucratic with high transaction costs and corrupt practices on the part of state institutions. Unlike the case of rural land, specific regulations governing the use of urban land are not yet in place. Some farmer associations (eldis.org)

Assesses the process of rural land registration in Mozambique and the outcomes for poor and marginalised groups. The research finds that community land registration, under the 1997 land law, can strengthen community rights to use and benefit from their land in relation to outsider interests in land. However, intra- community and intra-household land rights are not addressed, since it is only community land boundaries which are registered. The relatively centralised and complex registration procedures means that smallholder (eldis.org)

This report summarise the research findings of a project to examine the current processes of land rights registration in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Mozambique and assess their outcomes for poor and vulnerable groups. It examines the design and process of registration, the governance of those processes and the equity of the outcomes. This research finds that land registration is not inherently anti-poor in its impacts and that the distributional consequences of land registration depend on the design of the process (eldis.org)

This study reviews unconditional cash transfers in 15 countries of east and southern Africa. It examines four programmes in more depth, in Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zambia, with an emphasis on design issues such as cost-effectiveness, accuracy of targeting, delivery modalities, institutionalisation and potential for scaling up. It presents lesson- learning across countries and different types of programmes, discusses how to make cash transfers work for the most vulnerable children and considers the key (eldis.org)

This tool aims to support the scrutiny and the improvement of positive outcomes of laws for rural communities. It explores the reasons behind variable practical outcomes (good, average and bad) then suggests changes in how to develop laws, put them into practice or enforce them. It lists the key activities within this process as: identifying what laws say about community rights and benefits clarifying who is responsible for delivering community rights and benefits and how it should happen devising a (eldis.org)