AU Peer Review Attacks Development Model

(AfricaFiles)--Mozambique’s development model is creating a wide moat separating the rich from the poor and this can generate serious conflicts, warns the African Peer Review Mechanism (MARP) Forum in its self-evaluation report, published in February.

The consumer society is creating serious frustrations in the group that is excluded, which could lead to social convulsions in the medium term. The population is already taking justice into its own hands because it no longer trusts state institutions. This is a very strong statement from a very establishment body. The MARP Forum is a joint government-civil society body of 58 people, including three governors, the governor of the Bank of Mozambique, representatives of eight parliamentary commissions, civil society, the private sector, and members of the Agenda 2025 commission. The Forum president is Lourenço do Rosario, rector of Universidade Politécnica.

The principle beneficiaries of growth have been a tiny group and ‘the most credible indicators show an increase in absolute terms in the number of people below the minimum subsistence line’, thus rejecting government and donor claims of dramatic reductions in poverty. It calls for the creation of a development bank. Recognising the Mozambique has electricity from the Cahora Bassa dam, it calls for electricity prices to be reduced for the productive sector. Because of the bias to the social sector, only 3.5 per cent of the state budget is allocated to agriculture and rural development. This should be increased to the ten per cent recommended by various African summits and NePAD.

‘Mozambique’s present development model, based on free individual initiative and the principles of a economic liberalism’, is seen as creating unemployment and leaving many families with not even enough to survive, especially in urban areas. This is polarising society, and creating ‘serious risks’ of conflict. In a survey, half of respondents say unemployment as the most serious threat to peace, stability and security. The report repeatedly uses the word ‘fosso’, meaning a constructed moat or ditch, to describe the widening gap between rich and poor. The report also warns that ‘corruption is growing because of impunity’. 



*MARP is the Mecanismo African de Revisão de Pares, the African Union/NePAD Peer Review Mechanism, under which a team of eminent persons evaluates the performance of member states on a range of issues.

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