Donors put brakes on Mozambique aid PDF Print E-mail
After years of treating Mozambique as a special case due to its war-torn past, donors are beginning to require accountability from the government -- which is not gone unnoticed by the country's leaders.
A government that will not hear must be made to feel. This is the philosophy behind Mozambique's donors' recent decision to not increasing the budget support to the country for 2011. Behind the move lies disappointment over governance, lack of commitment to fight corruption and the exclusion of parties at last year's elections.

As outgoing chairperson of the donor group -- known as the G19 -- Finnish ambassador Kari Alanko, put it in a statement earlier this month: " ... the fact that in some areas of governance performance is considered unsatisfactory has caused some [donors] to reduce their pledges in relation to what had been in their long-term plans".

What that means is that planned increases of budget support -- which makes up almost half the Mozambican state budget -- have been cancelled. Instead, donors have pledged to continue budget support for 2011 at the same level as this year: a total of $472-million (R3,6-billion). Two donors, Sweden and Switzerland, are reducing contributions because of worries over governance.

The freeze of the pledge for 2011 follows the so-called donor strike earlier this year. Back then a majority of the G19 froze their pledges for 2010 due to disappointment with the ruling Frelimo party's poor performance on transparent governance, anti-corruption, mixing party and state, fighting conflict of interest and the exclusion of parties at last year's elections.

Smart move

Fernando Veloso, editor-in-chief of the independent Canal de Moçambique newspaper, regards the donors' flexing of their muscle as a smart move.

"Stopping the support was a brilliant idea. It showed that there is a limit to how much the donor society will put up with from Frelimo," said Veloso. "Having absolute power, it is increasingly treating Mozambique as if it were its own business."

Money constraints were beginning to bite -- including government cuts in transport and lunches -- when the G19 and the Mozambican government finally came to an agreement in late March. The latter's negotiator, Planning and Cooperation Minister Aiuba Cuereneia, promised reforms of the electoral system plus new legislation regarding corruption and conflicts of interest.

But Veloso does not have much confidence in his government's promises.

By Henri LomHolt Rasmussen
The Mail Guardian of Mozambique
July 2, 2010

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