Mozambique’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Max Tonela, held this week in Washington DC, a working meeting with the Executive President of the North American agency Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Alice Albright, during which both directors addressed the process of developing Compact II for Mozambique.
Alice Albright expressed satisfaction with the areas identified for Compact II, namely (i) Promotion of Investment in Commercial Agriculture, (ii) Rural Connectivity and Transport, and (iii) Climate Change and Coastal Development. “It will, in fact, be a Compact made up of interconnected pillars, although each of them has specific projects”, underlined the Executive President of MCC.
“I would like to highlight, in particular, the area of Climate Change and Coastal Development, which is increasingly important for the whole world, but much more pressing for countries like Mozambique, which are on the path of cyclones. I recently followed the passage of Cyclone Freddy through Mozambique, lamenting the loss of human lives”, highlighted Alice Albright.
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The Executive President of MCC understands that preserving the mangroves and supporting fishing activities, integrated actions in the same area (Climate Change and Coastal Development), “is a lucid approach from the point of view of promoting the development of communities. in particular, the fact that the government of Mozambique is working with two specialized partners in this field, namely BIOFUND, and PROAZUL”.
For his part, Max Tonela said that Mozambique will continue to work hard on the Compact II development process, whose signing of the Financing Agreement, with an estimated value of just over USD 500,000,000.00 (five hundred million North -Americans), is scheduled for August this year.
“We are even duly preparing ourselves so that issues relating to social and environmental safeguards are rigorously attended to, placing the rights of women and girls, in particular, at the forefront of attention. In this process, we are benefiting from the experiences of Compacto I and our engagement in other development programs”, emphasized Max Tonela.
Mozambique implemented, from 2008 to 2013, Compacto I, which had the provinces of Zambezia and Nampula as geographical focuses. For Compacto II, the province of Zambezia will be the geographic focus, although the prospective developmental initiative will have a national scope, mainly due to the political and institutional reforms that will be carried out.
