The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aims to reduce poverty, create employment, strengthen climate resilience, and lessen Mozambique’s dependence on extractive sectors through a new cooperation programme for 2027–30, which envisages investments of €89 million across these areas.
The programme identifies poverty, climate vulnerability, and limited job creation as among the main obstacles to the country’s development. According to the document, 60.7% of Mozambicans live in multidimensional poverty, while a further 16.9% are considered vulnerable to falling into that condition.
To address this situation, one of the targets set for 2030 is to reduce the proportion of the population living below the national poverty line from 81% to 65%. The UNDP also intends to support 24,000 people through vocational training, lifelong learning, and digital skills development, as well as to benefit 16,571 people through income-generating initiatives.
The programme also envisages improving the performance of 2,100 businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), by enhancing their access to financing, markets, value chains, and investment opportunities. Through these measures, the organisation seeks to support a transition towards an economic model based on employment-generating sectors and less dependent on extractive resources.
This shift is justified by the weight of extractive sectors in Mozambique’s exports, which account for 42% of the total, yet have weak linkages to the rest of the economy and limited job-creation capacity. At the same time, agriculture continues to provide livelihoods for 73% of the national workforce, while 95% of jobs remain in the informal sector and 19.2% of young people are not in employment, education, or training.
“The UNDP will support the country towards a climate-resilient and nature-positive growth model, built on diversified and employment-generating sectors, rather than continued dependence on extractives,” the document states. To achieve this objective, the programme carries an indicative global financial envelope of US$174.4 million, of which US$104.6 million is expected to be channelled towards economic transformation, job creation, climate adaptation, sustainable natural resource management, and the recovery of conflict-affected areas.
Economic transformation will be accompanied by greater utilisation of natural resources and growth strategies that are more resilient to climate change. The document notes that Mozambique ranks among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, placing 156th out of 187 countries assessed by the ND-GAIN index.
In this context, the UNDP plans to expand marine protected areas, strengthen early warning systems for natural disasters, support climate adaptation at the local level, and mobilise international climate finance. The programme also foresees the rehabilitation of 150 essential infrastructure units in conflict-affected areas and support for the reintegration of 750,000 internally displaced persons and other vulnerable populations.
On the energy front, the programme provides for an expansion of access to renewable energy in remote areas, increasing the number of beneficiaries from 242 to 12,000 by 2030. Approved by the UNDP Executive Board in August, the document also envisages supporting the government in mobilising resources from international climate finance mechanisms, including the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund, and the Global Environment Facility.
Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/2026/09/18/desenvolvimento-2/pnud-cria-novo-programa-de-cooperacao-para-reduzir-pobreza-e-criar-empregos-ate-2030/
