Mozambique: The U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability 10-Year Strategic Plan for Mozambique

24 March 2023
United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
document

Summary

The U.S. government (USG) is committed to partnering with Mozambique to stabilize conflict-affected areas and build longer-term resilience and peace. The ISIS-Mozambique (ISIS-M) insurgency has committed heinous acts of violence in Mozambique's northern provinces, to include killings, beheadings, rape, sexual slavery, child abduction, and forced conscription. ISIS-M's attacks have displaced nearly a million people. At the same time, the group has exploited and sought to exacerbate long-standing divisions within Mozambican society and local mistrust of government and security actors. In the wake of modest security gains by regional forces against ISIS-M, Mozambican leaders now have a critical opportunity to address these vulnerabilities and foster recovery, reconciliation, and resilience.

In April 2022, President Biden announced the U.S. government would prioritize partnership with Mozambique to advance the 10-year U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS), required by the Global Fragility Act of 2019 (GFA) (Div. J, Title V, P.L. 116-94). This document charts the way forward for how the United States plans to enhance engagement with and assistance to Mozambique, alongside international partners, to help Mozambicans realize their peace, security, and development goals.

The interagency SPCPS working group at U.S. Embassy Maputo developed this field-driven, 10-year plan in coordination with stakeholders across the U.S. government and based on numerous consultations with Mozambican interlocutors and diverse stakeholders. To inform this plan, Embassy Maputo conducted several visits to the northern provinces to engage local communities and leaders in conflict-affected areas. Rigorous analyses and myriad assessments by the U.S. government, local NGOs, think tanks, and international organizations also informed this agenda and helped steer its design. Senior U.S. officials held high-level engagements with Mozambican government officials and senior stakeholders, which also helped shape this plan.

This 10-year plan focuses on a phased approach to achieve a defined long-term goal: Mozambican individuals, communities, and institutions are strengthened and empowered to foster enduring stability through the development of open political participation and governance, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, accountable security and justice sectors, and resilient social cohesion.

The plan seeks to integrate the United States' extensive and ongoing security assistance, strategic communications activities, targeted socioeconomic development assistance, and diplomatic engagement with the Government of Mozambique (GRM) and local partners toward the following four objectives.

  • Objective 1: Mozambican communities, individuals, and civil society organizations demonstrate improved capacity and have equal opportunities to be active participants in political, economic, and social processes.
  • Objective 2: Mozambican institutions are strengthened and professionalized through more transparent, accountable, and effective systems.
  • Objective 3: Mozambique's economic and business environment fosters inclusive and sustainable development, to include increased private sector investment that creates local employment for previously marginalized communities.
  • Objective 4: Mozambican institutions are responsive to local needs and reliably provide basic services.

The United States will expand engagement and assistance to bolster these objectives, focusing first on conflict-affected areas in northern Mozambique and then expanding over time to the entire country. The U.S. government will expand assistance to local leaders and communities engaged in peacebuilding efforts and help increase their role in shaping broader political and socioeconomic processes. Simultaneously, the U.S. government will increase engagement with Mozambican institutions to support their efforts to deliver responsive security and justice for local populations, especially those historically marginalized. This will include advocating for and promoting critical institutional reforms to increase accountability and respect for human rights.

The U.S. government will focus on management and operations to enable more effective engagement with a wide range of Mozambican stakeholders. The plan identifies the imperative of enhancing staffing and access in-country to be able to engage with local partners in northern Mozambique. It further outlines a commitment to increase defense and security sector engagement, capitalizing on new cooperation opportunities. Sustained, robust engagement with Congress will be critical to ensure support of the President's Budget request and related legislative proposals are enacted to execute and adapt this plan over time.

Strengthening partnerships is fundamental to the long-term success of implementing this plan. It aligns U.S. efforts behind the government's Plan for Recovery and Reconstruction in Cabo Delgado (PRCD) and a complementary Program for Resilience and Integrated Development for Northern Mozambique (PRDIN). The plan also commits U.S. support to improve government-led donor coordination mechanisms. This may prove critical to the success of new GRM strategies for the north and to effectively leverage significant donor and private sector investments.

This plan seeks to promote field-driven, flexible approaches in how the U.S. government works to support Mozambican partners' approaches to address conflict challenges. After careful deliberation by the SPCPS working group and review of overall lessons learned, this plan seeks to promote innovation in several ways:

  • Engage diverse facets of Mozambican society - especially at local levels in northern Mozambique to include women - in the development, implementation, and monitoring phases of the 10-year plan;
  • Increase integration of stabilization efforts of the "3Ds" of diplomacy, development, and defense;
  • Buttress the GRM's plans and initiatives for stabilization and inclusive socioeconomic growth to reinforce national leadership and reforms, in coordination with other international donors;
  • Advance locally led solutions for good governance, community cohesion, reinforced security, inclusive and sustainable development, and a mended social contract; and
  • Elevate efforts to promote gender equity and equality and women's empowerment as key components of recovery, reconciliation, and resilience.

Embassy Maputo recognizes the iterative and adaptable nature of this plan as a realistic and practical blueprint for conflict prevention and long-term stability in Mozambique. The plan outlines a robust commitment to monitoring, evaluation, and learning, including in partnership with Mozambican stakeholders. U.S. efforts will emphasize flexibility and adaptability given the projected degree of uncertainty in the region. The U.S. government will pause, review, and adapt the plan as needed to reflect changing realities on the ground and active monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities.

Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations

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