CLWR's Involvement in Mozambique
Description of Program
In 2005 CLWR began focusing its efforts on Tete Province. Tete Province is located in the central zone of Mozambique. CLWR's projects are located around two towns: Fingoe and Furancungo.
Fingoe town (pop. 7,270) is 275km to the northwest of Tete and less than 100km from the Zambian border. Accessibility is a major problem during and after the rainy season (November until April), which affects the implementation of project activities and communication with field staff.
Furancungo (pop. 6,000) is 135km north of Tete City (less than 60km to the border with Malawi) and is more accessible to Tete (2˝hrs by road). Despite the road improvements in 1997 access to some parts of Macanga district are still difficult during and after the rainy season.
The key issues CLWR is addressing in Tete are:
Damaged Rural Communities: Wars broke-down families and communities and destroyed their traditional ways of working together. Lack of educational and training opportunities prevents growth and development. There is a need to empower local groups with both managerial and administrative skills to enable them to undertake local development activities. There is also a need to strengthen the peoples' ability to prepare for emergencies.
Food Insecurity: Agriculture is the backbone of the economy in the project area. Most of the people depend on their own small farms for survival. The major cause of food insecurity in recent years has been extreme climatic conditions. In times of drought or floods, many vulnerable households have been reduced to living on wild leaves and berries or, more recently on international food aid.
Poor social services provision: Government funds are insufficient to provide social services in Tete province. There is inadequate amount of well-equipped schools, health posts and water points. School children and the sick walk long distances to the nearest schools and health posts. There is a high rate of adult illiteracy. Dangerous diseases like malaria affect many communities on a seasonal basis.
Increasing incidence of HIV/AIDS in the communities: Men in the households did stay away and still continue to do so, from their households, be it as migrant labourers that work in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi or as fighters during the war. These days some stay away for three years before returning home. HIV/AIDS rates in neighbouring countries can be even higher than 30%. Men that stay away from their families for long periods are at extreme risk of contracting the virus, and bringing it back to their families. People with AIDS are vulnerable given the recurrent problem of food shortage that weakens their nutritional status. In the communities assisted by CLWR, the HIV/AIDS infection rate among 15-50 year olds (combining both genders) may already be over 15% (sometimes over 20%), and higher among women. These figures, however, are estimates, due to a lack of comprehensive baseline data.
Household Instability and Rights Abuses: All of the previous issues have disrupted family life, destroyed traditional values and caused economic decline. There are countless female-headed families in the project areas. In a country where 79 percent of women are illiterate (compared with 55 per cent of men), single mothers in Tete are rarely aware that legal protection exists. Furthermore, they have no experience of dealing with official courts, whose bureaucracy and expenses are beyond their capacity to cope with. Women need to be encouraged to register both their marriages and their children, as this gives them legal footing to claim support if the marriage breaks up, and to inheritance, in case of death.
In response to these issues CLWR is:
- Conducting community and leadership education campaigns;
- Promoting farming techniques that include crop diversification and the introduction of drought resistant crops;
- Constructing and rehabilitating small scale irrigation systems and small water-holding dams;
- Introducing an improved system of food conservation and storage;
- Training people in small business and marketing skills;
- Promoting the rights of women.
Partner(s):
- Lutheran World Federation
Total Program Cost: $850,000
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