The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced this Tuesday, 28 February, the signing of a 19 million euro project with the Government of Mozambique to rebuild Cabo Delgado.
The two-year project entitled “Stabilisation and Immediate Recovery of Cabo Delgado Province” is funded by the Netherlands and the European Union (EU) with the aim of “supporting the Government’s efforts” and “laying the foundations necessary to strengthen peace and promote development in the region.”
There will be actions to improve security conditions, guarantee essential services and provide socio-economic support, the UNDP said.
The project will take place in the districts most affected by the armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado, namely Macomia, Quissanga, Palma, Mocímboa da Praia, Muidumbe and Nangade.
“The six target districts were, before the conflict and based on the 2017 census data, predominantly rural, with more than 70% of the population living in rural areas. Based on this reality, the programme will not limit interventions to the main urban centres, but will also involve the communities to which most of the population will eventually return voluntarily,” the humanitarian agency explained.
As part of national stabilisation and recovery efforts, “UNDP established a local office in Pemba, the provincial capital of Cabo Delgado, in 2021, and started implementing stabilisation activities.”
UNDP has been supporting “the re-establishment of basic services through rehabilitation and reconstruction of destroyed public infrastructure, and economic recovery through monetary interventions and livelihood support,” he concluded.
The province of Cabo Delgado has been affected by a conflict since 2017 that is terrorising the population. Groups of armed rebels have looted and massacred villages and towns a little throughout the province and a variety of attacks have been claimed by the ‘arm’ of the self-proclaimed Islamic State in that region.
The conflict has already caused more than 4000 deaths (data from The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project) and at least one million displaced people, according to an assessment made by the Mozambican authorities. Since July 2022, a military offensive by Maputo, with support from Rwanda and later SADC, allowed for a climate of greater security in the region that had not been felt for years, and recovered localities that were controlled by the rebels, such as the town of Mocímboa da Praia, which had been occupied since 2020.
