Mozambique plans to create new metropolitan areas to respond to the challenges posed by urban growth around the main cities, driven by the rural exodus.
The creation of new metropolitan areas is foreseen in the recently approved National Urbanization Policy, explains Plácido Pereira, national director of Municipal Development at the Ministry of State Administration and Public Service (MAEFP).
Rural exodus, the high birth rate and economic issues are among the factors that influence the growth of urbanisation in Mozambique and across the world.
In this context, studies are underway aimed at transforming into metropolitan areas the cities of Moatize and Tete in Tete province; Dondo and Beira city in Sofala province; and Nampula-Namialo-Nacala, among others.
This process will be preceded by the development of an implementation strategy and the approval of respective legislation.
“It’s urgent to think about new cities”
For Pereira, creating these new metropolitan areas will allow the concentration of resources to solve problems affecting the administrative areas that will become part of the new metropoles.
Pereira stressed that this is not about new administrative areas, but about recognizing spaces for interaction and sharing of services.
“The policy recommends the creation of new centralities, given the fact that, since independence, we have not had new cities. The existing ones were built close to the coast and, with climate change, we are witnessing problems such as erosion. Some of them are aging cities and it is urgent to think about new ones,” Pereira explained.
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