The European Union (EU) intends to invest €65 million this year in development projects in parts of northern Mozambique affected by the armed insurgency. EU Ambassador to Mozambique António Gaspar expects the resumption of activities within “months”.
“For this year alone, we have €65 million euros in the pipeline for development actions in the north, for issues related to support for resilience, infrastructure, water and other programs that are already being formulated,” Ambassador Gaspar revealed.
The specific projects “are still being prepared”, in “permanent dialogue with the [Mozambican] government” and the Integrated Development Agency for the North (ADIN), an office created by the executive, he underlined.
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The north encompasses the plagued province of Cabo Delgado and neighbouring Niassa and Nampula provinces, and the €65 million represents 45% of the EU’s total support to Mozambique for this year.
This financial aid is part of a wider package of development support to Mozambique for the 2021-2027 period.
Total aid of €428 million in four years
Total aid for the first four years of the period in question will be €428 million, António Gaspar told Lusa. The focus is on three ‘pillars’: peace and stability; support for the emancipation of young people; and the ‘growing green’ strategy, to support the energy transition and preservation of the environment.
In the case of the region under terrorist threat, financial development assistance will be applied based on a study entitled the Resilience and Integrated Development Strategy of the North (ERDIN) prepared by the EU, the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the United Nations in tandem with the Mozambican authorities.
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The strategy is to re-establish “in five years” the “base for economic and social development” in the region, the document reads.
“Its mission is to promote the construction of peace, the reconstruction of the social contract between the State and citizens and economic recovery, based on the participation of communities, with the inclusion of women, young people and vulnerable groups, in a sustainable and resilient way, with respect for human rights,” he adds.
Questions about ERDIN
At the end of 2021, ADIN presented the ERDIN and mentioned that it would be submitted for approval by the Council of Ministers. With no developments since then, the situation has raised doubts, with Mozambican NGO the Centre for Democracy and Development asking in April if the government had “shelved the strategy”.
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António Gaspar told Lusa that the question does not arise. “This will not condition our support: the EU is not waiting to see” whether the document is “approved or not”. “ERDIN guides” the work of the EU and partners “from a technical point of view” and, at the same time, the document was placed “at the service of the government”, which is sovereign in defining policies, Gaspar said.
In addition to funds for development support, the EU has another financial dossier, by means of which it is supporting the country with €89 million in (non-lethal) military equipment and underwriting a two-year (2021- 2023) military training mission to deal with the armed insurgency.
