Maputo, 23 October (AIM) – The Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries, Roberto Mito Albino, challenged Eduardo Mondlane University (EMU) and the entire Mozambican academic community to produce scientific guidelines that will enable the construction of a resilient economy and the search for solutions to its own development problems.
If implemented, this would help the country reduce its dependence on external financing.
” This is the challenge I leave to EMU, I leave it to academics: to find local solutions to local problems,” said Mito Albino at the first symposium on adaptation to climate change and resilience in Mozambique, Maputo.
The Government believes that science must play a central role in identifying alternatives to national development, thus helping the country to value its resources and transform them into ways to finance its priorities.
” Therefore, academics, professors, doctors… Here you have a client who wants to receive scientific advice on how Mozambique should build its economy and ensure its development in a resilient manner,” he said, addressing researchers and teachers at the meeting.
He stressed that Mozambique needed to rethink how to mobilize resources for development. He argued that the search for external funding should not replace the national capacity to find solutions to his problems.
” We need to find local solutions to solve local problems,” he reiterated.
It called for the assessment of national resources, their conversion into financial resources and their application to the country’s development.
To illustrate the magnitude of the problem, the Minister highlighted the weight of food imports relative to investments to support domestic production.
” We imported $1 billion worth of food,” he said, clearly referring to spending on rice, oil, wheat and other food products abroad.
In contrast, according to the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries, production support programs with a direct impact on farmers, which make up the majority of the national workforce, receive annual investments of less than $50 million.
“If you have a $1 billion problem to solve, you’re not going to find the solution with $50 million in investments a year,” he said, “before wondering where the resources will come from to narrow this gap.
The Minister recognized that meeting this challenge requires scientific ideas and knowledge to guide economic decisions and support the construction of a development model adapted to Mozambican reality.
“Now, to be happy, I need ideas, I need science,” he said, attaching particular importance to the Oliver Tambo Chair in Ecosystem Adaptation, attached to EMU.
The Minister also argued that climate change meetings should lead to concrete actions based on the country’s needs and capacities, rather than simply discussing issues and waiting for external support.
” There is no point in continuing to go to meetings, to gatherings on climate change, unless we leave with nothing concrete,” he said.
The Minister’s statements come at a time when Mozambique is facing the recurring effects of extreme weather events, which affect agricultural production, infrastructure, productivity and food security of families.
The data presented by the Minister indicate that between 2000 and 2025, the country recorded more than 75 extreme weather events, causing economic losses in excess of $4.5 billion.
This year, floods affected approximately 170,000 households, or 724,000 people, with economic losses estimated at $647 million and recovery needs estimated at $1.6 billion.
(TOP)
SNN/mz