A Organisational Instability and Incapacity to Implement Plans and Policies

The organisational set-up in the agricultural sector has undergone almost constant change during recent decades in an effort to respond to a plethora of plans and policies. To illustrate, the ten-year period between 1995 and 2005 saw an excessive number of newly approved policies, strategies, and structuring laws, particularly in the area of natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable, including land, forests and wild fauna, land use planning, the environment, conservation, mines, and oil acts (Chiziane Reference Chiziane2015: 29), some with provisions conflicting with existing structures and ways of operating. Furthermore, from 2005 to 2013, a long series of plans and strategies for sectoral development were formulated and approved to bring about change in focus and priorities in the agriculture sector. They include:

• the Rural Development Strategy (EDR);

• the Green Revolution Strategy;

• the Strategic Development Plan for the Agricultural Sector (PEDSA) (MINAG 2011);

• the National Investment Plan for the Agricultural Sector (PNISA) (MINAG 2013; MASA 2018);

• the Support Plan for Intensification and Diversification of Agriculture and Livestock (IDAP),

• the Action Plan for Food Production (PAPA);

• the Agricultural Marketing Strategy;

• the Integrated Agricultural Marketing Plan (PICA), described as an instrument for the implementation of PEDSA;

• the Master Plan for the Development of Agribusiness (PDDA); and

• many others (Mosca Reference Mosca2011: 239–269; Granheim Reference Granheim2013: 47).

Along with these changes, government responsibilities and authority were frequently moved around among ministries and agencies, particularly in the areas of land, marketing, light industry, as well as food, irrigation, and promotion. The instability, often inconsistency, and overlapping or competing mandates cascaded down to the lower levels, with the set-up, closure, and transformation of commissions or national boards, state secretariats, and autonomous funds. Similarly, the duties of agricultural marketing, land and forest administration, and the promotion of rural development were regularly transferred between ministries.Footnote ¹⁶ A parallel process took place in the areas of domestic and foreign trade, industry, and tourism.Footnote ¹⁷

These vicissitudes totally overburdened the existing human and organisational capacity, and detracted attention away from the provision of core public support services for agricultural development at local level. In addition, there was deconcentration and decentralisation of powers and responsibilities, particularly at provincial, municipal, and district levels, from 2004, with the approval of the regulationsFootnote ¹⁸ for the Local Government Act (LOLE)Footnote ¹⁹ and other legal documents (Mosca and Bruna Reference Mosca and Bruna2016: 23–31).

The functioning of the agriculture sector has, as well, been influenced by favouritism and economic interests (Bruna, Reference Bruna2017) linked to powerful social groups. Indications are that this favouritism takes place through protected public officials who establish links between the central state and the regional law, on the one hand, and customary local and general rules, which are not always written down or democratic, on the other.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADER)Footnote ²⁰ is the main public organisation responsible for the agricultural sector. The Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development (MITADER) coexisted with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MASA) until the new government took office in 2020. At this point in time rural development became the responsibility of MADER, while land and environment came under a separate ministry. While both MASA and MITADER were represented at provincial level, representation at district level has not been uniform, and there has been no direct subordination relationship in the ongoing decentralisation process in the country. The organisational changes in the agricultural sector reflect a bewildering combination of underlying factors, to which we return below.

In spite of all of the above, the state budget allocation to the agricultural sector has for decades hovered around 4 per cent, moving up to 6 per cent in 2019, which is well below the African Union commitment of 10 per cent (Nova et al. Reference Nova, Dadá and Mussá2019: 6).Footnote ²¹ Apart from the allocation being below the goal, the same authors (GdM and NEPAD 2017: 8–9) show that the investment aimed at institutional support and production support has been declining since 2012.

B Competing Approaches to Agricultural Transformation

We have already discussed the frequent restructuring of ministerial organisations and their policies. This has led to a sense of randomness that is associated with the existence of competing approaches to agricultural transformation. While there is widespread consensus around the desire to see rapid modernisation, there is, in fact, disagreement on how to promote agricultural development in practice.

In effect, there are two sides to this debate:

1. (i) One defends accelerated modernisation based on the industrialisation of agriculture and buying technology, with little attention paid to what it takes to transform small peasant farmers into commercial companies. The focus in this option is based on mechanical reading of experiences from elsewhere in combination with little attention to history and context. It is based in part on the belief that small family farmers do not really respond to economic stimuli, and that they are incapable of modernising without the intervention of the state. The other part of this perspective is that intervention should take place through projects and programmes where focus is on already established companies, whether agricultural, agro-industrial, state, cooperative, or private. It is systematically highlighted that medium-sized and large farms have higher yields than small farms (Mucavel Reference Mucavel2018: 6, 10), to highlight the importance of prioritising the former to the detriment of the latter.

2. (ii) The other side argues that the modernisation of agriculture comes as a result of the modernisation of the entire society, and that it is not exclusively sectoral and depends on the political, social, and economic context of the country. It is not enough to buy technology, no matter how successful this may have been in other contexts. Put differently, this approach is based on small farmers being capable of modernising, by participating in the development and adoption of the most appropriate technology for each place and time, to the point of increasing their participation outside the agricultural sector, provided they have access to the resources and the rights needed for this.

The first perspective has been gaining ground during the last decade. While we noted the lack of success of the attempts at modernisation and agrarian transformation in the immediate post-independence years, there are, in fact, recent programmes and projects with positive impacts in terms of increasing productivity. They are, however, linked to specific geographic locations and groups involved. National indicators show that these interventions and the associated changes in policies and organisations do not seem to have influenced family farming, when it comes to their productivity, the generalized adoption of environmentally friendly technologies, or developments in the total volume of food production.Footnote ²²

C Low Quality and Quantity of Public Service Delivery

With all of the above organisational efforts, the aim was that the Mozambican government should be able to assume and perform in its assigned role, guiding and supporting agricultural development in an effective manner, including having the capacity to plan, implement, and negotiate with other agents in the sector. This was so at least for the principles adopted in 2003 in Maputo, by the African Union (AU) Summit, when it made its first declaration on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) as an integral part of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The CAADP was established as Africa’s policy framework for agricultural transformation, wealth creation, food security and nutrition, economic growth, and prosperity for all, and was adopted with the full support of the Mozambican government. This included the broad targets of 6 per cent annual growth in agricultural GDP and an allocation of at least 10 per cent of public expenditures to the agricultural sector. This was followed in 2014 with the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth, adopted by the AU.

In practice, under-budgeting, poor use of the budget, and the lack of a clear, long-term vision for the sector undermined the capacity of the state apparatus. This weakness became associated with the outsourcing of agricultural contracting schemes and development projects to NGOs and companies and agribusinesses whose participation was usually short in duration and with very limited geographic scope. In addition, the efforts made to support farmers’ organisations so that they could have more bargaining capacity for negotiating prices and the terms and conditions of their production contracts were negligible.Footnote ²³

Assessing Mozambique’s performance against the goals of the Malabo Declaration, it stands out that, as already noted, the state budget allocation was well below the 10 per cent goal. Moreover, funding has been insufficient to put in place the necessary internal capacity as well as staff able to provide even the most basic state services in support of agriculture development. This is so for plant and animal health, agricultural research and extension, statistics, supervision and quality control, protection and development of genetic material, enforcing the law and addressing market distortions. All of these areas have not received the necessary attention whereas responding to vested interests has been in focus.

The distribution of ministry staff depends on the resources available at provincial and district levels, and Nova et al. (Reference Nova, Dadá and Mussá2019) note that Zambézia, Nampula, and Tete provinces, where 53 per cent of the country’s cultivated land is farmed, only receive an allocation corresponding to 31 per cent of the operating budget. As to the public investment budget, this is distributed with around 24 per cent for production support, 24 per cent for extension and research, and 24 per cent for institutional support. The remaining 28 per cent is earmarked for forestry, livestock, irrigation, and land administration services (2019: 8).

The biennial assessment report on the implementation of the aforementioned Malabo Declaration goals (MASA 2017) assesses the level of CAADP progress in the country to be at 57 per cent.Footnote ²⁴ Importantly, while noting some improvements, the report mentions that Mozambique is still far from reaching the goals of eradicating hunger and reducing poverty (2017: 32–34). More specifically, in relation to production assistance, the total number of extension staff was 2,025 in 2013 and 2,794 in 2018. This includes the public extension network – which increased from 1,137 to 1,863 – the network of companies – which went from 281 to 510 – and the NGO network, which fell from 607 to 421. The extension service currently provides assistance to around 20 per cent of farms in an irregular fashion and with few visits per farmer, for a goal of 100 per cent in 2018, according to the Malabo goals.

Overall, the poor ability to provide basic services to small farmers in the ‘family sector’ in a way that is reliable and focused on farmer needs stands out as a main shortcoming in the sector. Key associated weaknesses include a pronounced tendency to focus on the short term and rely on ad hoc, improvised restructuring at all levels rather than developing the longer-term vision and set of activities needed as part of a framework for sustained progress. The same can be said about the lack of attention to the needed decentralisation of public services, including services for development of appropriate technology with a view to increasing productivity, and the absence of appropriate credit systems for small farmers.

D Unequal Access to Justice, Conflict Resolution, and Law Compliance

Generally speaking, the legislative framework concerning the agriculture sector is clear, but compliance is not assured. As already noted, the ten-year period between 1995 and 2005 was rife with approvals of reformed policies, strategies, and new laws. The ambition was that the legislative framework, in combination with the majority of customary regulations, whose application is enshrined in the constitution, would ensure adequate access to justice and protection of farmers. Notable examples are the Land Act, frequently cited as one of the best in Africa (Tanner Reference Tanner, Anseeuw and Alden2010: 105), and the Forest and Wildlife Act. However, as we shall see below access to justice is, in practice, unequal due to the structure and regulation of the system. In combination with the disproportionate power of the government and large private interests in influencing the decisions of the courts, this is a source of uncertainty for farmers.

The majority of land rights are not registered, which is not required by law, and non-registration does not per se undermine this right. Currently, around 24 million hectares (DINAT 2018), or 30 per cent of the land area, is registered, of which 12.3 million hectares, up to March 2019, were registered to rural communities (Topsøe-Jensen et al. Reference Topsøe-Jensen, Ainadine, Calane and Macia2019: 59). The majority of land conflicts are resolved by non-judicial bodies, through mediation and seeking reconciliation, promoted by the district authorities or by the Provincial Services of Geography and Cadastre (SPGC). When private companies and investors are involved, the resolution is more favourable to the communities when they are assisted by civil society organisations (Mandamule Reference Mandamule2016: 24).

Many agricultural cases could be dealt with by the community courts, provided for in the constitution. While found in several districts, they lack guidance and regulation.Footnote ²⁵ Given their position between the formal and the informal and their links with alternative ways and means of conflict resolution (Alfazema Reference Alfazema2015: 8), extending their powers would facilitate the legal pluralism recognised by the constitution.Footnote ²⁶

Cases that have been through the local courts of mediation are normally sent to higher administrative bodies before being presented to the courts. This fact gives government bodies at various levels disproportionate power to determine the outcome of cases in which they are in conflict with citizens. Exceptionally, when the conditions are in place, cases can be taken to higher judicial courts. In some cases, when they have the support of the Mozambican Bar Association (OAM), they may get convictions, even against the government or the elite. Successful examples are the convictions against the global mining company VALE Moçambique and the Mozambican state in the case of forceful removal of local farmers from their land in TeteFootnote ²⁷, as well as the conviction of the ProSAVANA OfficeFootnote ²⁸, for engaging in secretiveness and lack of transparency regarding the plans for acquisition and use of land rights (OAM 2018).

Other cases, even with the support of the OAM, are faced with difficulties in being heard. An example is the case of the land irregularly attributed in Afungi, Palma District, to the Rovuma Basin gas project. This resulted in an illegal right to use and benefit from the land (direito de uso e aproveitamento da terra: DUAT), ultimately issued to the gas company two years after the legal opinion of its illegality was pronounced (Trindade et al. Reference Trindade, Cruz and José2015). The OAM appealed against the DUAT, but one year later, the Administrative Court refused to hear the case, alleging that the communities had accepted it and could be adversely affected (OAM 2019) by an interruption of the activities. This example raises questions as to the independence of the courts, as does the fact that lots of land lies idle, especially along major roads and other infrastructure, where the DUATs are held by non-residents, who are not obliged to use the land or lose it as the law stipulates.

Finally, some areas in the agricultural sector are regularly inspected (Topsøe-Jensen et al. Reference Topsøe-Jensen, Ainadine, Calane and Macia2019: 72, list land use inspection instruments). The ministries responsible for the sector also have inspectors that deal with complaints from the public. In this way, officials who abuse their power may be penalised. A conflict management department was set up in land administration in 2015. In Forest and Wildlife administration, the law provides for a strategy for the participation of community inspectors, which was actually developed (Bila Reference Bila2005). An inspection operation of national scope was implemented for monitoring timber harvesting (‘operation trunk’) and, occasionally, there has been news of combating poaching and trade in hunting trophies. The supervision of land use activities has resulted in the withdrawal of DUAT or rescaling of idle land. However, law enforcement powers are weak, partly due to the conflicts between legal regulations (Capaina Reference Capaina2019), the capture of the state by private interests, and the insufficiency of human and financial resources.

Thus, although the legislative framework is formally in place, some subsectors are subject to capture. This is more frequent for forestry plantations (Bruna Reference Bruna2017), livestock and game farms, and timber harvesting, where intensive logging is carried out (Afonso Reference Afonso2019: 9). The same goes for areas of interest to the elite with easy access to capital, who obtain land rights for areas where they only use a very small proportion and in conflict with the local population (JA and UNAC 2011: 58–59).

E Lack of Effective Voice, Participation, and Accountability (Weak Civil Society)

Community and public participation in decision-making is recognised in the legislation (OSISA 2009: 74 and following) and this extends to the agricultural sector. Turning to the right of association, it is governed by Law No. 8/91, of 18 July. However, the process of revising this law, in order to simplify it, with participation by civil society organisations, is not making progress.

Apart from public hearing mechanisms, where people can participate individually, there are also other types of participation through organisations. There are civil society organisations and consultation fora from community to central level.Footnote ²⁹ Some have a wide membership base.Footnote ³⁰ Others include product-oriented companies and/or institutions.Footnote ³¹ Some of these have local representation, taking part in consultations, work, and local assessment of policies (Topsøe-Jensen et al. Reference Topsøe-Jensen, Pisco, Salimo and Lameiras2015: 54 and following).

Some forms of participation are simply informational, opening up room for clarifications, others are for specific consultation on a topic or programmes, while others are for dialogue and working together, with operational results. Some operate independently, others are organized around topics or causes. Freedom of speech in the country favours the participation and accountability of the state and other formal organisations, as well as public assessment of their performance and the rules of the game that apply. However, public agricultural institutions have, in practice, shown little inclination to adopting accountability mechanisms open to their sector partners. For example, information on rights to use and benefit from the land is not available to the public.

On the positive side, community consultations in the application process for obtaining the DUAT might result in a record or document, such as a license or certificate, with legal value to the holder. Another example is the case of the Consultation Forum on Land or Forests. While any consensus is not binding, it is difficult to ignore, provided the consensus does not imply revision of the legislation. In addition, there are other consultation fora, which do not include representation of the state or the government, aimed at monitoring and advocacy, as is the case of the Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), the Land Forum in Nampula, and the Women’s Forum. Some of these are formally constituted and are the object of a legal instrument.Footnote ³²

Local organisations are also invited to take part in the formulation of policies, as well as the monitoring of their implementation. The favoured participation channels are the Community Councils, which can have specific names – for example, the Participatory Management Councils (COGEP) for land resources, forests, and fauna. However, in the agricultural sector, this has not been a systematic practice common to all the public institutions. There are cases where there was effective participation by civil society organisations (CSO) but, in the majority of cases, either there was no involvement or there were only poorly prepared soundings to no effect. Additionally, occasions for cooperation are systematically postponed.Footnote ³³

Overall, the complex network of organisations participating in the agricultural sector allows for attendance and participation at different levels and at different occasions for complaint, consultation, advocacy, supervision, etc. However, the examples presented in the previous section show that their voice is not always heard (Salomão et al. Reference Salomão, Mário and Tanner2019a: 7) and they do not always fully represent the communities (Salomão et al. Reference Salomão, Mário and Tanner2019b: 6). In spite of this, their participation is of intrinsic value in the transfer of information and knowledge of the general positions of the players involved. This value is also present in events at regional and national representation levels. It is from these consultations that alliances and agendas are structured and more effective actions are initiated.

In sum, consultations and participation, as well as the mechanisms established for this purpose, are present in the daily routines in the agricultural sector. However, the efficiency of such participation is not reliable, generating uncertainty among the farmers as to whether all the parties involved will stick to agreements arrived at. Put differently, the ‘social contracť is still not binding.

A Political Instability, Violence, and Legitimacy of the State

Vast tracts of Mozambique have experienced a situation of political and military instability and violent conflict for 30–40 years. Peace was partially and temporarily restored for two decades, from 1992 to 2011, but political and military tensions returned to threaten peace and tranquillity. The impact on the agriculture sector has been devastating. Conflicts have caused people to abandon their areas of residence and production, generating pressure and situations of disputes over rights of use of resources and interrupting the provision of services to small farmers, delegated to medium-sized and large companies.

The war during the 1980s caused massive destruction of infrastructure and loss of human lives throughout the country. In addition, agricultural land was abandoned as millions of predominantly rural refugees sought shelter in neighbouring countries and urban areas. Furthermore, the war meant that resources were directed in very large measure to military purposes with long-term consequences. The war also undermined the Ministry of Agriculture preventing the creation of public services that are fundamental for a modern agriculture. Mozambique, in contrast to Zimbabwe, did not inherit rural extension services and the war broke down all marketing efforts.Footnote ³⁴ Similarly, national capacity for agriculture research did not take off, and the weak production of seed and inadequate use of fertiliser are just two examples that have roots back to the destabilisation of the 1980s. A final example refers to local district administrators who, because of the war, became state representatives with a certain style of authoritarian governance in detriment to a process of focusing on the welfare of the people and seeing themselves serving for this purpose.Footnote ³⁵ In addition, the turnaround in economic principles from the late 1980s led to an almost exclusive focus on getting prices right, market-based approaches, and the dismantling of state support for agriculture development in a country plagued by violent conflicts. Mozambique has not, so far, managed to escape from this heritage in any decisive manner, and population growth and its unbalanced territorial distribution have continued to generate conflict over scarce resources.

The armed conflicts in Mozambique and the intermittent violence in recent years (2012–19)Footnote ³⁶ involved and affected, due to their nature and location, rural communities and crop and livestock farmers, and also affected the sectors to which they were linked (Brück Reference Schick1998: 1047–48). The main areas affected have been the provinces in the centre and north of the country, which are also the ones with the largest farming population, working the largest cultivated area, including the ones with the highest productivity, growing both food and cash crops. The main private commercial investments in land and natural resources are also in these regions, with impacts on the farming rights and conditions of the rural society. In addition, conflicts in the centre of the country have brought with them the risk of damaging cuts in terrestrial communications between north and south, and the coast and the hinterland.

Armed violence severed sales channels, worsened the already weak capacity for providing agricultural services, and affected activities related to jobs outside of farming and consumption of farm produce, including tourism. In 2014, the National Farmers’ Union (UNAC) estimated that around 69,000 farming families had been affected by the war (UNAC 2014: 2). Political violence and the conflicts had an impact on people’s movement and on women in particular (ASFC et al. 2019: 44–48), the main segment of the rural population, as well as on the environment.

It is also clear that the combination of widespread flooding and the Renamo insurgency in 2013 caused massive drops in food production as reflected in Table 4.1. Traditionally, rural households have turned to the sale of forest products, as well as wild food and medicinal products as a coping strategy when facing production shortfalls. However, the migration caused by the armed violence has disconnected the communities from their environment, limiting their access to these natural products.

Political, military, and social violence has in recent years had a deteriorating effect on the stability of the farming population and on food security (Jornal Notícias 2018; TVM – Redacção 2020). The attacks by groups assumed to have ethno-religious roots in the extreme northern coastal area in Mozambique began on 5 October 2017 (Maquenzi and Feijó Reference Maquenzi and Feijó2019: 13), and are presently a major concern and security threat.

In sum, (a) faced with the existence of diverse armed groups, the state has no effective monopoly on the use of force; (b) local administrative structures have weakened; (c) the rural population, mostly farmers, have continued to be seriously affected by war and armed conflict; (d) the harshest hit regions are the ones with the highest agriculture and livestock production potential; and (e) these areas in the centre and northern part of the country are also those that have been affected most by extreme climate events during the recent episodes of armed violence. Moreover, the agreements between Frelimo and Renamo during the last decades have not led to the same sense of people’s safety and a return to peace as was the case after the 1992 Treaty of RomeFootnote ³⁷, which led to recovery of the agricultural sector in the 1990s.

Nation-building and building the legitimacy of the state is a long-term continuous process and certainly involves recognising the role of the state in assuring the safety of people and property, the protection of social rights, the structuring and provision of other public services and the promotion of development. In Mozambique, the inability of the state to assure the provision of agricultural public services and promote the development of a broad base in the sector, combined with growing spatial and group-based inequalities, has contributed to the erosion of the legitimacy of the state, facilitating the outbreak of violence with an impact on agricultural production and marketing.

B Regional Divides and Lack of Market Integration

Mozambique has been a transit country since colonial days. Infrastructure was built to provide transport services for neighbouring countries with limited focus on integrating the national territory. Accordingly, and as summarized by Tarp et al. (Reference Tarp, Arndt, Jensen, Robinson and Heltberg2004), while the connections between east and west in Mozambique are relatively good, infrastructure is generally poor. Moreover, domestic transport between the northern and central parts of the country – the areas with highest agriculture potential – and the urban south is very costly and severely constrains agriculture development.Footnote ³⁸

Since 1992, major programmes have been implemented with donor support to develop the transport network, which have resulted in improvements in the primary and secondary road system, especially in the southern regions. However, rather limited attention has in practice continued to be paid to developing north–south integration and a badly needed rural roads network, and this is so in spite of the extensive geographic diversity already alluded to above. According to the World Bank (2016), only 17 per cent of the rural population lives within 2 km of the nearest road in good condition.

Consequently, transaction costs are very high indeed, and markets for agricultural production are poorly integrated. This implies that improvements in agricultural technology alone are unlikely to be successful. Increasing production in local areas will be associated with falling prices if farmers do not have access to export markets and consumers in the south. This calls for coordinated investment in infrastructure and agriculture support services. This runs counter to the aspects discussed in Section B and the limited capacity of the state.

Summing up, it is clear that the above characteristics have over the years deepened the historical and socio-economic divides between southern Mozambique, on the one hand, and the central and northern regions, on the other (see Egger et al. Reference Egger, Salvucci and Tarp2020; DEEF 2016).

C Lack of Interest of the Elite

At independence the nation-building project of Frelimo was closely associated with attention to agrarian transformation and priorities were focused on the promotion of state farms and communal villages. The inherent investment strategy was capital-intensive and proved in the final analysis to be a failure. As Frelimo priorities started to shift towards small-scale peasant agriculture before the Fourth Congress in 1983, war was in the making, literally undermining attempts at agriculture advance. After peace in 1992, peasant agriculture seemed to rebound almost automatically due to recovery from a very low base and the interests of the elite were elsewhere.

The economic liberalisation programme led to a privatisation process and a merger of private and political powers, which became the focus of attention. Agriculture was, with prominent exceptions in forestry, wildlife, and land, largely ignored. Generally, the sector did not offer really major opportunities for rent-seeking and capital accumulation though cases of corruption associated with, for example, the forestry sector have attracted attention in the popular press. Moreover, the elite did not depend on agriculture progress in the midst of major inflows of foreign aid and their reliance on food and other imports from South Africa.

Towards the end of the 1990s, interests started shifting further towards the opportunities inherent in the extractive sector rather than to agriculture, which, as described above, continued to be affected by natural calamities and emergency management instead of long-term priorities and needs. This, in combination with the poor use of the state budget in the agriculture sector, meant that the share of the budget remained very low until the present. This has been further influenced by the weakness of civil society organisations as advocacy organisations for public concerns, a role that goes beyond their function as pressure groups.

D Donors (Lack of Agency in Strategic and Policy Formulation)

The lack of economic and financial resources has greatly constrained autonomy in economic policy decision-making in Mozambique ever since independence. As stated by Mosca (Reference Mosca2011: 452), agricultural policies and strategies were from the beginning imported and based on the assumption of external funding. To illustrate, in the agriculture sector this explains in large measure the adoption of capital-intensive technology and approaches to agrarian transformation in the immediate post-independence period, which proved unsuccessful. Another stark example of donor influence is the economic reform programme introduced after economic collapse in 1986. While the programme was evidently inappropriate in a context of war and destruction, its longer-term consequences are hard to exaggerate. This is certainly so in relation to the dismantling of state presence in the sector and the need for public intervention to address evident market failures in areas such as input supply, marketing, and access to credit.

In their review of aid and development in Mozambique from 1980 to 2004, Arndt et al. (Reference Arndt, Jones and Tarp2006: 79) highlight that:

Put differently, the existence of numerous donors with competing interests and priorities contributed in the 1990s to a pronounced lack of strategic direction depending on which donor was the most influential at a particular point in time. Accordingly, aid agencies reinforced the lack of priority given to agriculture in sectoral budget allocations. We have referred above to the relative neglect of agriculture by the government in budgetary allocations. It should not be overlooked that the same was happening in the allocation of aid for agriculture development.

As emphasis shifted in aid modalities around the turn of the millennium from project and programme support to macroeconomic and budget support, an effort was made to ensure greater coherence and effectiveness. However, it is quite obvious that Mozambique’s dependence on external finance has led to lack of agency and the practice of using donor-funded consultancies as a conditionality has weakened national policy coordination and ownership to the point where mutual trust between government and the donor community started breaking down from late 2000s. The most recent example of this appeared in relation to the hidden debts scandal where donors froze all budget support to the newly appointed government in 2015 with drastic socio-economic implications. Fortunately, relations have recovered, but the interests of donor countries have started to change with the discovery of large gas deposits.

In sum, donors have played a very significant and volatile role in Mozambique since independence. External interventions have not always been unproductive, sometimes contributing to the transfer of knowledge and the stabilisation of the conditions under which farmers make their decisions as economic and social agents. In addition, we find that the dependence on aid should not excuse the lack of ability to formulate and implement policies, whether on the part of the state or on the part of civil organisations.

A Challenges

B Policy Considerations