This summary note is an excerpt from the chapter on Mozambique that will appear in the peer-reviewed IFPRI monograph, Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis.

The research, produced in collaboration with scientists from the countries studied, is based on scenarios from economic global climate change models, and takes into account estimates of each country’s economic and population growth. Each study includes a set of policy recommendations.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

If global warming is to be held to no more than 2°C this century, then greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have to be reduced. Agriculture is responsible for between 11% and 35% of total emissions of GHG, the higher figure applying when the effects of converting forest, peat and wet lands to farming are included. Technically, there are ways to reduce emissions from agriculture and forestry at relatively low cost. Indeed, through carbon capture in soils and plants, agriculture could — for at least some time — drastically reduce its net emissions, perhaps getting close to zero.

Executive Summary

Key Messages

In most markets, monthly maize prices have decreased in the reference period due to the beginning of harvests; however prices remain at high levels. Nominal maize price has reached or exceeded the highest levels observed in 2008.

Overall, the national food security situation is satisfactory thanks to newly harvested maize crops available on markets; however different agencies report an alarming situation of hunger and undernourishment.

High prices are limiting the purchasing power of most poor households who are now relying on markets.

Food insecurity is reported in Central and Southern regions with an estimated 350,000 people requiring food assistance in the short term.

Food security conditions in the country were not affected by civil insecurity or particular natural hazards during the reporting period, however there are risks of calamities that could damage crop and livelihoods in the coming season.

The Government is implementing policies to support agricultural production and productivity

There is considerable interest in how to collect and use life-cycle cost information, which is critical to planning and budgeting for sustainable services. This document discusses how the information has been collected in Mozambique within the framework of the WASHCost project. An assessment is made of which tools have proven to be most suitable to collect which type of information, and this information will be useful for planning similar efforts in other provinces of Mozambique or in other countries. Unit rates for each of the tools are presented as

In the Gaza and Inhambane provinces of Mozambique, drought is the most frequently occurring natural disaster, and it has the greatest impact on household food security. One of the main contributing factors to droughts and an ever-shortening drought cycle has been climate change - to the point that many areas always have low rainfall. Much of the Gaza and Inhambane provinces are semi-arid and arid. Even in years of good rainfall, there is usually less water than is needed. Water shortages are constant and critical, which limits agricultural productivity.

In 2009, seventeen years after the civil war ended in Mozambique, its government still found it necessary to address the reintegration of some 100 000 former combatants, even though the completion of this process, supported by international partners and the United Nations (UN), had been announced in 1994. This raises the question of why Mozambique, a country whose peace settlement and Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes had been considered so successful, found it necessary to attend anew to the needs of former fighters. Why was it important to