Speeches Shim
USAID is proud to support Mozambique’s leadership in the global HIV/AIDS response. Through PEPFAR, USAID improves service delivery and provides technical assistance to maximize the quality, coverage, and impact of the national HIV/AIDS response. PEPFAR aligns investments to scale up evidence-based interventions in the geographic areas and populations with the highest burden of HIV/AIDS. USAID also supports improvements in the health workforce, financing, management, information systems, supply chain, and service delivery.
USAID’s family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) program aims to: 1) increase access to a wide range of modern contraceptive methods and high quality services for postpartum women, HIV positive women and adolescents, high parity women, and post-abortion care women at both community and facility levels; 2) increase demand for modern contraceptive methods and high quality FP/RH services; 3) strengthen social behavior change communication interventions; and, 4) strengthen FP/RH systems in strategic planning, human resources, financial systems, commodities, and supply chain management.
Mozambique is one of fourteen priority countries targeted by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). USAID/Mozambique, in collaboration with the Government of Mozambique’s (GRM) Ministry of Health (MoH), created the Health Infrastructure Development Program (HIDP) to support GRM’s efforts to improve and expand health care services for the people of Mozambique.
Latest figures indicate that HIV/AIDS prevalence in Mozambique is 13%, with 29% prevalence among orphans aged 15-17, and almost 40,000 AIDS related deaths in 2015. Three randomized clinical trials showed that male circumcision (MC) reduces female to male HIV transmission by approximately 60%. In Mozambique, MC has been practiced by many communities for centuries. In addition to having religious significance, MC often serves as a rite of passage to adulthood and is performed as part of adolescent initiation rites.
Aflatoxins are pervasive in the value chains of key staple crops such as maize and groundnuts in many developing countries where agriculture is a significant contributor to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Mozambique is one such country, where agriculture constitutes 24% of the GDP, with 80% of the population dependent on it as a source of income. Some of the most commonly cultivated crops in Mozambique, such as maize, cassava, and groundnuts, are easily contaminated by aflatoxins and widely consumed by the population. Aflatoxin exposure and its association with growth impairment in children may contribute to a significant public health burden, especially in less developed countries like Mozambique.
Through its Energy Policy Activity, USAID helps Bosnia and Herzegovina attract investment and integrate its energy market into regional and EU markets. USAID’s implementing partner for this five-year $7.5 million project is Advanced Engineering Associates International.
School councils (SCs) are the school bodies charged with monitoring quality of services, improved school management and accountability. SC members are elected and typically include representatives from the community. SCs are partially composed by parents and local leaders who are often adults who typically have limited access to information on how school councils should operate. SC members also lack the capacity to hold school staff accountable for providing quality education, starting with the effective use of available instruction time for improved learning outcomes.
Since the end of the civil war in 1992, the Government of the Republic of Mozambique (GRM) has been rebuilding its education system with the goal of providing universal access. Under the policy of free and compulsory primary education, the primary education net enrollment ratio has expanded from 52% in 1999 to 94% in 2016. This expansion has placed pressure on school management, teaching personnel, and the overall quality of classroom instruction, resulting in overcrowded multi-shift schools, high student/teacher ratios, and plummeting reading and math test scores.
Poverty and HIV/AIDS in Mozambique’s Zambézia Province have kept many children from staying in school. About 75% live in absolute poverty where the HIV prevalence rate of women and men age 15-49 is 15.1%. Poor teaching quality, long distances to schools, early pregnancy and marriage, gender-based violence, child labor and negative attitudes towards girls’ schooling are major challenges to the education of girls in Zambézia. Girls’ average completion rates in Zambézia are 23% percent at the upper primary level and 4% at the secondary level.
Education is a fundamental human right. In 2016, 94% of school-age children were enrolled in primary school, compared to 72% in 2003. Despite the increase in enrollment, education quality in Mozambique still remains a challenge, with low levels of competency in reading and writing at the end of the 1st and 2nd grades of primary education. As a result, less than five percent of students demonstrate grade-level reading proficiency by 3rd grade.
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