The World Bank has improved its assessment of Mozambique’s ability to effectively use external financial aid by 0.1 points, compared to national policies and institutions, slightly above the average for sub-Saharan Africa.
“The increase in the score reflects the improvement in policies and debt management due to reforms to improve the regulatory framework, strengthen management in public companies and improve the management of budgetary risks,” the institution argues in the annual report analysing whether the institutional and policy environment is conducive to the effectiveness of development aid, to which Lusa had access on Wednesday.
The document, which is the responsibility of the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s arm for concessional financing for the poorest countries, says that “progress has been made in social inclusion and equity through greater gender equality and the empowerment of human resources in health and education”.
The economists emphasise that “more efforts are needed in developing the financial sector, ensuring financial stability and continuing to adhere to good international accounting practices”.
In the document, which improves Mozambique’s score from 3.1 points to 3.2, placing the country slightly above the average of 3.1 points in sub-Saharan Africa, they also argue that “efforts to improve governance, particularly in property rights and the rule of law, and address vulnerabilities in transparency and accountability, are essential to improving overall performance”.
In this year’s edition, which covers 2022, the World Bank improved the score of 12 African countries, maintaining 20 and reducing eight, and emphasises that “despite global economic challenges, more countries in sub-Saharan Africa saw improvements in their overall Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) score compared to the previous year”.
This institutional assessment of countries and policies is carried out annually by the World Bank, using four main lines of assessment (economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity, and public sector management and institutions) and 16 criteria.
The twelve countries that improved their rating include Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, with São Tomé and Príncipe being one of the eight countries whose rating worsened, and 20 maintained their level, out of a total of 39 countries analysed in sub-Saharan Africa, on an ascending scale of 1 to 6.
Angola and Equatorial Guinea, the other two Portuguese-speaking African countries, are excluded from this assessment, as they are not considered by the World Bank to be poor countries, given their level of per capita income.
The annual IDA report “captures the quality of each country’s institutional and policy arrangements, focussing on elements controlled by a country, rather than outcomes influenced by external elements”, which means that the final result “assesses whether sustainable growth and poverty reduction can be sustained through the institutional and policy arrangements in place”.
As the score “represents the capacity for effective utilisation of development aid, it is one of the main factors that determines IDA’s allocation of development funding,” the report goes on to explain, pointing to an average of 3.1 points, the same as last year.
