Maputo — The British government has announced a grant of over three million US dollars in support of efforts to mitigate the impact of drought in southern and central Mozambique.
According to a Tuesday press release from the British High Commission, 1.6 million dollars will be spent on health and nutrition activities aimed at reducing mortality and morbidity rates among under-fives. This money is to be channelled via the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which is working with the World Food Programme (WFP) and various NGOs, in reducing vulnerability in districts seriously affected by drought.
This UNICEF programme hopes to reach 141,000 children aged between six and 59 months, and 71,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women. The programme also involves treating severely malnourished children.
The rest of the British money, 1.64 million dollars, is to be spent on a labour-intensive road programme. The roads improved under this programme should make the distribution of foodstuffs easier in areas vulnerable to drought, as well as providing better access to state services and to markets. It should create job opportunities for about 5,000 people.
The release says that the response of the British government's Department for International Development (DfID) to the drought is aimed at increasing the purchasing power of vulnerable population groups, in order to ensure their food security, and to improve the nutritional status of children and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
British aid also seeks, through the distribution of agricultural tools, to ensure that peasant farmers have the means to guarantee their own food security. DfID says it is considering support for agricultural fairs in areas of difficult access, which would promote the sale of agricultural implements through local traders.
The release adds that DfID is assisting WFP Special Operations in repairing the final 77 kilometres of the Nacala railway (from the town of Cuamba to the Malawian border), and hiring wagons and locomotives that can ferry food from Nacala port to Malawi. In the short term it is expected that this will double the capacity of the railway.
In the long term, the release says, it will create jobs, stimulate the emergence of small companies along the railway, and boost the commercial viability of Nacala port.
