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Mozambique Reports and Documents

This is an archive of documents on Mozambique not readily available elsewhere, and references to Mozambique articles on other websites.

Last updated: 25 January 2023

Exchange rates 2006-22 and minimum wages - 1996-2022

Minimum wage & exchange rate charts and tables 1996-2022. Becauase of the secret debt crisis, in the three years 2014-17 the Mozambican Metical was substantially devalued, from US$1=Mt30 to US$1=Mt70, and South African Rand 1 = Mt 3 to SAR1=Mt5. Minimum wages have been increased significantly in Mt but the devaluation cuts the US$ value. The minimum wage peaked at $99 per month for farm workers, fell to $54 in 2017, and rose to $81 in 2022. For civil servants, $99, then $60, now $137. In industry, $145, then $89, now $124. 

$2 bn secret debt

Family Expenditure Survey (IOF)

Other documents

Renamo-government

The full text of the peace agreement reached between government and Renamo in early August 2014.

Separation of party and state: Princípios sobre a despartidarização do Aparelho de Estado

2015 plan and budget proposals as submitted to parliament:

Proposta de Lei do Orçamento do Estado para 2015

Proposta da PES para 2015

Eleições Nacionais 2014 National Elections.

We published frequent bulletins before and after national elections on 15 October 2014, in English and in Portuguese.

World Bank Mozambique Service Delivery Indicators - Education - March 2015

Budget support (GBS, G-19)

Various May 2014 documents relating to budget support:

Independent evaluation

Annual review

2014 pledges (for 2015)

Coal and gas

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Agriculture & land

Gurue soya boom

Thousands of subsistence farmers in Gúruè district are earning small amounts of money from soya. However, about 100 farmers earned more than $1000 profit from soya, and have become small commercial farmers. But land conflicts are increasing.

Gúruè produced nearly 6000 tonnes of soya this year, adding more than $2 million to the local economy. Soya is a "revolution for the population," Gúruè Permanent Secretary Tito Celestino said. And the growth potential for soya is huge.

Making money farming in Manica

In Manica province there are probably several hundred small and medium commercial farmers (often called "emergent farmers"). This is in sharp contrast to a research visit seven years ago, when there were few small commercial farmers. There are two keys to the growth in the number of emergent farmers. First has been hands-on management and step-by-step progress. Second has been outside support, often linked to contract farming. But no large foreign agricultural investors have succeeded in Manica. Prio Foods, with 24,000 ha and €6 million investment, was the latest to fail, in January 2013 -- following the trail blazed by Sun Biofuels and others. Pouring in money and smart foreign managers has not, so far, been a recipe for success.

Chickens and beer on the road to growth

Compared to seven years ago when we last visited, rural Nampula remains very poor - although there is now some commercial agriculture where there was none before. A growing number of individuals and associations are becoming small commercial farmers. It has taken a decade, but the seeds planted by the more hands-on and practical agencies like Clusa and TechnoServe have produced at least an initial crop. A key motor has been the domestic and foreign private sector with a long time horizon. Mozambican traders are more active and this has produced a market. But satisfying that market requires inputs, ploughing, technology, and credit which is not readily available. The companies making the most impact are those that are willing to invest for 10 or 20 years ahead, who are building businesses for their children and grandchildren, and who are building businesses that depend for their success on Mozambican commercial farmers. Contract farming of soya (for chiken feed) and cassava (for beer) are raising local incomes.

Irrigation - only for the President to see

Irrigation pumps installed in Nante, Zambézia, following the visit of President Armando Guebuza in May 2010, have never been used. He promised pumps would be installed within 45 days, and they were. But motors did not match the pumps, so cannot be used.
Report in English and Portuguese

World Bank conference paper on land

"Confrontation Between Peasant Producers and Investors in Northern Zambézia, Mozambique, in the Context of Profit Pressures on European Investors" by Simon Norfolk and Joseph Hanlon. Paper presented at the World Bank Annual Conference on Land and Poverty, Washington DC, 23-25 April 2012
Paper in English and Portuguese

Agriculture: Obama vs Annan models

The G8 and the Africa Progress Panel offer different agricultural development models

Guardian PovertyMatters blog 31 July 2012

Donor agriculture proposals

USAID proposals for G8 agriculture agreement with Mozambique, including the list of companies which might participate, and the World Bank policy matrix. Both documents appear to be the donor proposals to which they government has yet to agree.

Pro-Savana

Pro-Savana is a joint Japanese-Brazilian-Mozambican agricultural development programme for the Nacala corridor based on a similar Japanese-supported programme in the Brazilian cerrado. It is proving controversial. See Mozambique News Reports and Clippings 209 and 210 for more details. We are posting here a range of documents.

The Food Crisis and the Global Land Grab website has extensive material on Pro-Savana, including a leaked draft of the Pro-Savana master plan.

A defence of Pro-Savana by Natalia Fingermann, Os mitos por trás do ProSavana (The myths behind ProSavana, but in Portutuguese only) , has been published by IESE (Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos; Institute of Social and Economic Studies) in Maputo. This has been challenged by Sayaka Funada-Classen in Observador Rural No.12 in English and Portuguese. She has also written Analysis of the Discourse and Background of the ProSAVANA Programme in Mozambique – focusing on Japan’s role in English and in Portuguese as Análise do Discurso e dos Antecedentes do Programa ProSAVANA em Moçambique – enfoque no papel do Japão in which she argues "this programme started as a political, diplomatic, commercial and publicity project, and has not been initiated from the needs of the local inhabitants"

2011 & 2012 municipal by-elections

There were by-elections (eleicoes intercalares) for mayor (presidente) on 7 December 2011 in Cuamba, Pemba and Quelimane, and on 18 April 2012 in Inhambane. These are various related documents:

Full text of approved ethics law

Parliament (Assembleia da República) on 11 May 2012 passed the ethics and conflict of interest law. Originally presented as Lei do Servidor Público (Public Servants Law), it was retitled Lei de Probidade Pública (Public Probity Law). The file is large and is broken into four parts. The text is in Portuguese; there is not yet an English translation.

Frelimo 10th Congress

The 10th party congress in Pemba 23-28 September 2102. Mainly reports of Political Commission and Central Committee elections. (There was little policy debate.)

Political Commission candidates lists. Continuidade Mulheres and Areas Económicas e Sociais are missing.

2014 flood reports

Floods 2013

After heavy rains, there was serious flooding in southern Mozambique. On Wednesday 23 January the city of Chokwe was totally flooded and flood waters had reached the level of the 2000 flood. Floodwaters hit Xai Xai on Saturday 26 January, but were lower than 2000. The peak passed relatively quickly and the clean-up began in on 29 January.
We will post flood reports as they become available.
Nearly all are in Portuguese.
There is a very detailed daily Boletin Hidrológio National (National Water Bulletin) which gives current water levels compared to other years and flood levels.
There are excellent annotated satellite pictures on the website of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), which are updated regularly.