Maputo, 07-09 June 2023 - The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) conducted a support mission to the Republic of Mozambique to sensitize stakeholders from the public sector, private sector and civil societies on the preparation of the Targeted Review Field Mission on the theme State Resilience to Food Security and Natural Disasters. The APRM team was led by Honorable Lydia Wanyoto-Mutende, Panel Member in charge of Mozambique and Professor Eddy Maloka, APRM Chief Executive Officer. In addition, they were accompanied by Dr. Rachel Mukamunana, A.g. Director of Country Reviews and Assessment at APRM and Mr. Germain Tshinu, Country Coordinator and Researcher at APRM.
The APRM delegation kicked off the support mission by paying a courtesy call to H.E. Dr. Ernesto Max Elias Tonela, and the Minister of Economy, Finance and APRM Focal Point to explain the purpose of the mission and measure the country’s readiness to undertake the Targeted Review Field Mission. The minister welcomed the team by congratulating the APRM Continental Secretariat for keeping abreast of key governance challenges pertinent to the African Continent such as climate change and natural disasters, which also have significant ramifications on the Republic of Mozambique’s efforts to ensure food security and the wellbeing of its people. Given the importance of the topics chosen, the minister announced his team readiness to work closely with the APRM team for a successful Targeted Review field mission.
During the courtesy call, Honourable Lydia Wanyoto-Mutende expressed her gratitude to the minister and the people of Mozambique for the warm welcome and the hospitality reserved to her and the entire team since their arrival in the country. She also acknowledged the country’s Pan-Africanism spirit of aiding some African countries to address issues of common interests. Professor Maloka also thanked the country for the invitation extended to the APRM to undertake a crucial assignment on State Resilience to Food Security and Natural Disasters. He indicated that APRM’s presence in the country is to work closely with Mozambique to prepare the upcoming Targeted Review Field Mission. Dr. Mukamunana highlighted the pertinence of the topics chosen by Mozambique and the measures that are taken by the APRM Continental Secretariat to put in place a team of competent experts to ensure that the expectations of the country are met.
On the second day of the support mission, a workshop was organized with more than hundred stakeholders to sensitize them on the Targeted Review Field Mission. The workshop started with the welcome remarks by Dr. Amelia Zambeze, the vice-chair of the National Governance Council. She congratulated the APRM team for accepting the invitation to carry-out the Targeted Review exercise and outlined the purpose of the workshop to participants. She was followed by Professor Maloka who delivered his opening remarks by making a parallelism between Mozambique’s unwavering commitment to the APRM’s principles and the current APRM membership which has grown from five (5) Member States in 2003 to forty-three (43) countries as of June 2023. The Chief Executive Officer of APRM outlined the purpose of the preparatory mission by calling all the stakeholders to actively get involved in the preparation of the upcoming Targeted Review. Honourable Lydia Wanyoto-Mutende encouraged participants to make use of the workshop to ensure that, the report that will be produced differs from others to benefit policy makers, development partners and NGOs in the development of programmes and policies in the best interest of the population.
The Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance HE. Carla Louveira, representing the Minister of Economy and Finance, started her opening remarks by extending her congratulation to the APRM Continental Secretariat for the platform it has provided to the Republic of Mozambique to conduct evaluations and present successive progress reports, which placed the country at the forefront of this process. She added that, APRM opened the space for the participation of Mozambican citizens; fostered national dialogue and increased advocacy around good governance and providing a useful framework for reforms in the country and across Africa. Based on this tremendous achievement, she indicated her government unequivocal commitment and support to this mechanism, considered as an excellent source of knowledge, where they are inspired to collectively deepen transparent and responsible governance, as well as the principles of participatory citizenship. The Deputy Minister ended her statement with great expectation that the upcoming Targeted Review will allow the country to come up with strategies to coordinate government and partners’ responses to address issues related to natural disasters and food security.
After the opening remarks, Dr. Mukamunana made a presentation on the overview of APRM and State Resilience to Shocks and Disasters. This presentation considered the Mandate, Structures, Processes, and the revised Questionnaires of the APRM. The other presentations on Mozambique Terms of Reference and Roadmap for the Targeted Review were done by Mr. Germain Tshinu to help the audience understand the process of consultants’ recruitment and the chronogram/timeline for the activities to be carried out to produce the Targeted Review Report. The representative of Mozambique NGC made presentations on Mozambique expectation of Targeted Review and clustering of provinces for the field mission.
In the discussions held over the presentations, participants were concerned about high level of education and qualification requirements in the recruitment of consultants and the timeline between activities was considered short. They suggested that APRM lowers years of experience and level of education in the recruitment of the consultants. They also suggested that the mechanism recruit a firm or a group of consultants instead of individual consultants.
The discussion led to the end of the workshop with the closing remarks from the APRM Continental Secretariat and a representative from the Mozambique National Governance Council. In both organization’s closing statements, they congratulated the participants for coming out in numbers to prepare the actual Targeted Review field mission in months to come.
The support mission ended with a courtesy call that, the APRM team paid to H.E. Filipe Jacinto NYUSI, President of the Republic of Mozambique. The President welcomed the team and announced his country’s readiness to conduct the Targeted Review on Food Security and Natural Disasters. In addition, the president appreciated the topics chosen by his country but requested that the effects of mining activities on food security and natural disasters be considered when the review is conducted.
