Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world per capita. Paradoxically however it is one of the "African Lions," one of the African nations that is growing annually by 6% or more. How is this possible? Mozambique is abundant in natural resources, mostly fuel. Mozambique is home to rich natural gas and coal reserves that have helped propel the country economically, but most of this wealth does not trickle down to the average citizen.
According to Freedom House, Mozambique is ranked as partly free. The country achieved independence from Portugal in 1975, followed by a 16 year civil war that wreaked havoc on the country's infrastructure. In 1992 a peace deal was signed under the supervision of the UN, and the country made a slow transition to Democracy with the first elections being held in 1994. Despite this government has been ripe with corruption which has stifled progress.
As a former colony of Portugal, many of the institutions in Mozambique were built as extractive, meant to be benefit the mother country. These institutions and there successors have helped allow for nations to exploit Mozambique for it's resources by making deals with leaders which help boost overall GDP, but do not help create a stable economy. Most of Mozambique's citizens live in rural areas, and depend on agriculture to sustain themselves. The rural masses have largely been ignored by the government, which has made little to no attempts to create economic reform. The Brazilian mining company, Vale, has recently invested in the country hoping to make big gains on the largely untapped resources beneath Mozambique's surface. If the government helps administer this form of FDI responsibly, it could create mining jobs for the millions of poor who struggle to get by and help stabilize the growth over a larger sect of the population. However as the resource curse has shown, the likelihood of this is low and the country will most likely resort to exploiting it's own resources at the cost of the masses.
Sources
Polgreen, Lydia. "Coal Boosts Mozambique as Rural Poor are left Behind" New York Times. 11.11.12 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/world/africa/as-coal-boosts-mozambique-the-rural-poor-are-left-behind.html?pagewanted=1&hp
Freedom House. Mozambique 2011. 11/11/12 http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2011/mozambique
I have a pessimistic view of Mozambique's future. I did Mozambique for my country profile, and from what I have read about the country, I really believe that this newly found oil will only increase the level of inequality, making the rich richer but not helping the poorest of the poor in any way. As discussed in class, I believe that the resource curse will prove to be true in Mozambique and levels of corruption will go through the roof. Although I am sure it will help overall economic growth, it won't do much to help the majority of the citizens in Mozambique.
ReplyDeleteFrom what we learned in class, the resource curse is most apparent in countries that are located near or on the coast. Since this is the case for Mozambique, I am in complete agreement that the resource curse is going to be a huge part of this country for many years to come. Something that could maybe help this situation is for the Mozambique government to step in and actually create an economic reform. However, this is highly unlikely. My question is how the exploitation of resources can be done without harming the entire population. It will be interesting to see where this country lies in the next couple of years.
ReplyDeleteAgain, with bad leadership and great resources comes corruption in government, making it bad for the citizens of the country. I don't believe in the resource curse, but I do believe in the corruption curse.
ReplyDeleteLike stated above the future for Mozambique does not look very good since the newly found natural resources in the country. I wonder if something can be done to stop this, either by the people of Mozambique or the international community? I am also curious how the newly found resources will affect the government and in turn the Freedom house ranking.
ReplyDelete