Notícias

Food security remains a pressing issue in Mozambique, where according to the World Food Program, a full 80% of the population cannot afford an adequate diet and stunting is present in 42% of children under five years old.

A key local institution who contributes to food security in the country is the Mozambique Institute of Cereals (ICM), an independent public entity tasked with i) promoting efficient trade in cereals to stimulate production and ensure broad-based economic growth in rural areas, and ii) ensuring domestic food security in times of crisis.

Alusivo à celebração do dia internacional da biodiversidade, 22 de Maio, a USAID através do Programa SPEED+ em parceria com a Administração Nacional das Áreas de Conservação (ANAC) e o grupo teatral Mutumbela Gogo desenvolveu e apresentou uma peça sobre a importância da conservação da biodiversidade para o equilíbrio da vida na Terra para mais de 300  estudantes e respectivos professores de três escolas da cidade de Maputo (16 de Junho, Infulene - Benfica e Colégio Nyamunda).  O evento permitiu aumentar o conhecimento sobre biodiversidade, seus benefícios, ameaças e consequências da sua destruição.

Almejando a melhoria do ambiente de negócios, que de acordo com o índice do Banco Mundial   “Doing Business 2018”, Moçambique encontra-se na posição 138 no conjunto de 190 Países avaliados, o Ministério da Indústria e Comércio, o Ministério da Justiça e a Confederação das Associações Económicas  com o apoio da USAID através do Projecto SPEED+, levaram a cabo a revisão pontual do Código Comercial que culminou com a aprovação pelo Conselho de Ministro através do Decreto Lei 1/2018, de 4 de Maio.

Mozambique’s public electricity grid reaches only 1.7 million clients, about 27% of the total population of 28.8 million inhabitants. In the rural areas, this number is less than 7%. Expanding access to energy will require enormous investments in the production and transportation of electricity.  Programs that increase the energy efficiency of current power consumption can make more power available for more customers and reduce the need to finance new power generation.  

SPEED+ is assisting the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy (MIREME) to respond to an important need to revise the Electricity Law and its regulations.  Lack of access to reliable power is a key binding constraint to broad-based growth in Mozambique. While the Government of Mozambique has undertaken important initiatives to encourage the development of projects to increase capacity and broaden access to power, the sector is still governed by Law 21/97, of 1 October (Electricity Law) and its regulations, which define the legal framework for the organization and the authorization of activities including generation, transmission, distribution and sales of electricity within Mozambique, as well as electricity imports and exports.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act is a U.S. trade act that provides duty-free import to goods produced in qualifying Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. AGOA came into force in 2000 and was most recently exten­ded to 2025 through the AGOA Extension & Enhancement Act (AEEA). Mozambi­que has been eligible for AGOA since 2000. One of the additions to AGOA through the AEEA is language in the legislation that states countries should produce “AGOA Utilization Strategies” to take advantage of the benefits. Accordingly, this AGOA Utilization Strategy is intended to identify strategic sectors and goods for exports to the U.S. under AGOA by Mozambique, to provide guidance on incre­asing the awareness and expertise of AGOA among Mozambique’s relevant public and private stakeholders and to elaborate a set of strategic actions that, if implemented, could help Mozambique to better utilize the AGOA.

Partnerships between government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector offer the possibility of bringing necessary finance and management resources to protect Mozambique's biodiversity assets, which in turn will help transform those assets to economic gain through increased tourism.  SPEED+, together with Biofund, undertook a study to analyze various co-management models and make recommendations to Government on important aspects to include when finalizing co-managemnet agreements.  The Delegated Model, whereby the Government "delegates" management to NGOs or the private sector under long-term agreements, offers the greatest opportunity for maximizing advancement of Mozambique's biodiversity assets.

Cashew producers, typically smallholder farmers, can receive a 49% price increase on sale of raw cashew nuts if the export tax and peak season ban of exports on cashews is removed.  These cashew producers bear the cost burden of Mozambique's export tax, and this contributes to low RCN quality. By being forced to sell their RCN to processors/exporters at below market prices, rural farmers directly subsidize the domestic processing industry and have lost on average of USD 5 million in revenue per year over the last decade. Eliminating the export tax and peak-season export ban would result in a 49% increase in the price of RCN, directly benefiting incomes of small holder farmers.

As áreas de conservação tem sido mundialmente reconhecidas como o meio mais eficaz de conservar a biodiversidade e os bens culturais associados. No entanto, alcançar uma conservação eficaz e desenvolvimento sustentável rural é um desafio, especialmente devido à crescente pressão populacional, caça ilegal e uma variedade de outras ameaças. Além disso, as Autoridades de Gestão das Áreas de Conservação encontram-se regularmente na difícil situação de ter vastas áreas para gerir com grave escassez de financiamento e pessoal. Nessa perspetiva, Moçambique tem estabelecido ao longo dos anos, diferentes iniciativas de gestão colaborativa com entidades privadas e a comunidade local, como forma de compartilhar responsabilidades de gestão, por forma a garantir uma maior eficiência na conservação da biodiversidade.