Speeches Shim
Despite Mozambique’s recent economic growth and its strategic location in southern Africa, the country still faces challenges in developing its agriculture sector and reducing hunger. The most common is the lack of access to quality inputs and markets. The Mozambican agricultural market has an undeveloped agro-inputs distribution system, with very few agriculture supply shops in rural areas. The few inputs that are commercially available are found in distant urban centers, inaccessible to most farmers.
USAID has worked closely for years with partners such as private sector companies and associations, civil society organizations, and the Government of the Republic of Mozambique (GRM) to increase investment and incomes in the agriculture sector. The GRM has set forth an ambitious agenda to increase equitable, pro-poor agricultural growth and sustainably reduce poverty and hunger. Aligned with GRM’s vision, USAID’s FTF Inova provides the framework for ensuring that successes in Mozambique’s agricultural sector are enduring, that market actors are resilient, and that women benefit from growth in the agricultural sector.
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) offers a promising pathway to sustainable intensification of agriculture and increased farm productivity, income and resilience for smallholder farming families. CSA is not new to Mozambique, but uptake has been slow due to various demand- and supply-side challenges. Limited awareness and trust in new technologies and a lack of access to markets and finance constrain demand. Further, even where demand exists, low-capacity and poorly functioning systems fail to deliver a supply of high-quality inputs and services to the rural farmer.
Agriculture is the backbone of Mozambique’s economy - employing 80% of the active workforce; 90% of the female labor force and 70% of the male working population. Accelerating agricultural growth is a key means of eradicating poverty and increasing food security in rural areas where poverty is widespread. BHEARD aims to help improve agricultural productivity and growth, integrate agriculture and nutrition and contribute to a more robust policy development process in areas such as trade and agribusiness. Progress in these areas requires attention to critical shortages of agricultural policy analysts, research scientists, nutritionists, and agribusiness professionals who are trained at the postgraduate level (M.S. or PhD).
Covering 42,300 km2, the Niassa National Reserve (NNR) in northern Mozambique is larger than Switzerland and is home to the country’s greatest concentrations of wildlife, including 70% of Mozambique’s elephants and a third of the lion population. The NNR is also home to 40,000 people, who depend critically on the Reserve’s fish, water, timber, soil, meat, and tourism revenue for their livelihoods. Yet despite the Reserve’s size and importance, the area is still little known internationally, and conservation is under significant threat from poaching, commercial logging, unmanaged use of natural resources, and relatively weak management capacity.
Urbanization in West Africa is challenging municipalities’ ability to deliver consistent and quality water and sanitation services as well as make improvements toward the water and sanitation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In both Benin and Cote d’Ivoire, millions of people lack access to basic or safely managed drinking water and sanitation services.
Malaria is considered the most important public health problem in Mozambique. It accounts for nearly one third of all deaths and 42% of deaths in children less than five years old. Although malaria prevalence has decreased in all provinces, the country continues to face challenges that have slowed the progress of key malaria prevention and treatment interventions.
Mozambique has shown significant improvements in health indicators and progress in maternal and child health over recent decades. However, despite substantial improvements in infant and child mortality rates, preventable maternal and child deaths continue to be unacceptably high in Mozambique. Neonatal complications or infection, malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and HIV/AIDS account for more than 80 percent of all deaths of children under five in the country, with malnutrition as a contributing factor in 35 percent of children deaths.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census has an existing Interagency Agreement with USAID at the global level to provide technical assistance to National Statistical Organizations in the preparation, implementation, analysis and dissemination of national population and housing censuses.
Mozambique – ranked 170 of 188 countries on the Human Development Index – faces significant development challenges. The country is largely dependent on agriculture (mostly subsistence-based with small family farms) and is vulnerable to drought and natural disasters. 66% of the population live in rural areas, most live below the poverty line, and one-third is chronically food-insecure with high child stunting.
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