Attachments
NATIONAL SOCIETY PROFILE
The Mozambique Red Cross Society was founded by constitutional conference in 1981, where it was recognized by the Government of Mozambique through legal instruments which define its competence and recognize it as a legal entity of public utility, with its auxiliary role to the public authorities.
The Mozambique Red Cross therefore has an officially recognized role in assisting the public authorities of Mozambique in the humanitarian sector. The National Society’s status in civil society is well established and it is considered an integral part of the combined disaster management instruments in Mozambique. The National Society has been assigned responsibilities by the Government, including its disaster management and civil protection institutions, and the United Nations trusts it as a member and leader of the shelter cluster, together with the IFRC.
The Mozambique Red Cross has a longstanding presence in all 11 provinces of the country and currently covers 133 districts through its district branches, out of the 154 districts. The National Society has over 160 permanent staff who ensure programmes are delivered in all provinces and manage a network of 6,500 volunteers countrywide. The National Society also maintains three central warehouses, one for each region in the north, central and south, enabling a considerable preparedness and prepositioning capacity to respond to emergencies.
The National Society strives to build capacity for vulnerable communities to prepare to confront disasters, to prevent and mitigate their impact where possible, and to respond effectively to their impact.
The National Society’s strategic priorities for 2023 are as follows:
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Climate and environment: to increase the capacity of communities and adopt climate-resilient measures
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Disasters and crises: to increase its capacity to intervene in communities in disaster situations
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Health and wellbeing: to reduce morbidity, with a focus on the most marginalized or affected people
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Migration and displacement: to contribute to a dignified treatment of displaced people and migrants
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Values, power and inclusion: to improve access to social services for the most marginalized in society
IFRC NETWORK ACTION IN 2023
Joint situational analysis
Mozambique is located on the southeastern coast of Africa, bordering South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. It has an Indian Ocean coastline of 2,700km, making a large part of the country prone to tropical cyclones and flooding. Almost half the country is subjected to drought, flooding or both. Several geological faults cross the country, especially in the northern and central parts, resulting in the occurrence of earthquakes across Mozambique. These natural hazards have always had a long-term impact, especially on the lives of people with a limited capacity to cope.
Approximately 60 per cent of the population live along the coastline, where they are exposed to water-borne diseases. The situation is aggravated by the conflict in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, which has continuously led to the increase of internally displaced persons and acute food insecurity.
About two-thirds of the country’s estimated 31 million people live and work in rural areas. The country is endowed with ample arable land, water and energy, as well as mineral resources and newly discovered natural gas offshore, three deep seaports, and a relatively large pool of potential labor.
Mozambique is strategically located, as four of the six countries it borders are landlocked and therefore depend on Mozambique to give them access to global markets. Mozambique’s strong ties to the region’s economic engine, South Africa, underscore the importance of its economic, political and social development to the stability and growth of Southern Africa as a whole.
The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo remain the country’s main political forces, followed by the Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM). Frelimo won the 2019 presidential and legislative elections in a landslide. Nevertheless, Mozambique is still grappling with a military insurgency in parts of the gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado.
A modest post-COVID-19 recovery is underway. Mozambique saw its first economic contraction in almost three decades in 2020, owing to the pandemic that hit the services and extractive sectors hard.
The current conflict in Ukraine is expected to further affect economic growth through higher prices of fossil fuels, edible oils and wheat, products for which the country is a net importer. Deterioration of the security situation in the north of the country may increase public spending pressures, among others.
Despite large investments going into social sectors in Mozambique, poverty remains high. Since 2016, Mozambique has experienced a period of elevated macroeconomic volubility, after revelations of hidden debt caused a significant economic downturn, which in turn limited poverty reduction.
More recently, two cyclones damaged agricultural output, an important source of livelihoods for most Mozambicans living in rural areas, as 70 per cent of rural residents depend on agriculture. All of these led to a stagnation of the poverty rate trend at 62.4 per cent during the period 2015–2021, with more than 12.5 million people living below the national poverty line.