CLIENT

Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN)

date:

February 2023

Services:

Inception Report, Data collection (KII), Reporting, Report validation workshop

team:

Anthony Roland Brouwer, Sonia Maciel, Fernando Mazuze

Narrative Description of Project

In 2018 The Netherlands (NL) has chosen the province of Cabo Delgado as one of its geographical focus areas. This was done in a time in which the economic perspective of this province was positive due to the discovery of huge gas reserves. The initial program was intended to make sure that the local population of Cabo Delgado would also profit from the anticipated economic development. However, the terrorist insurgency that started in 2017 in Cabo Delgado destabilized big parts of this province in 2020, bringing social and economic development to a complete stand-still, including the gas industry. Cabo Delgado since then has become a fragile region and the insurgency is causing a humanitarian disaster affecting millions of people, including around 900.000 Internally Displaced People (IDP).

This development has seriously affected the programming of NL in this province. As not many activities were ongoing, some of the more recently started activities already took the new security situation into regard, and the ones that started earlier were forced to adapt.
On the Dutch side there was a major shift in its ambition; from focusing on an Aid-for-Trade agenda clearly linked to business opportunities for Dutch companies related to the gas developments in Cabo Delgado towards an agenda that focusses on local private sector development (PSD) for local Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
In the new MACS for the period 2023-2026 NL considers different scenario’s towards Cabo Delgado. As a starting point, the approach should be flexible – if the security situation would deteriorate even further, EKN should be able to adapt its programming. One of the scenario’s considered is to widen the geographical focus area and include part(s) of neighboring provinces Niassa and/or Nampula. If this would make sense given the security situation and would be meaningful and feasible, EKN could then anticipate to this scenario by having new programs/projects start already in these parts of the neighboring provinces as a base for activities in these provinces as well, which could later be used for scaling up, in case activities in insurgency affected districts of Cabo Delgado need to be adapted or phased out.

The main objective was to have a study carried out to look into the meaningfulness and feasibility and the terms of widening the geographical focus in the North of Mozambique from Cabo Delgado only to neighboring areas if the security situation would require a scaling down in Cabo Delgado

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment

Specific activities included:

    1. Desk research: to gather and study relevant documentation,
    2. (Online) interviews with the policy officers of EKN and with active development partners in the region (e.g. AfDB, SDC, WB and Irish Aid).
    3. Field visits: to Cabo Delgado and parts of Niassa (Pemba-Lichinga Corridor) and to Nampula (coastal region between Cabo Delgado and Nacala). To have meetings with different stakeholders active in the region
    4. Draft of report with key findings 
    5. Validation workshop carried out in Cabo Delgado 
    6. Final report

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