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Rural
poverty in Mozambique
Mozambique is one of the world's poorest countries. Despite its impressive economic growth rates and despite the encouraging development progress made by the government in recent years, poverty continues to be severe and widespread. By 2003 the number of Mozambicans living in absolute poverty had been reduced to 54 per cent from 70 per cent in 1997. Yet the vast majority of the rural population still lives on less than US$1 a day, and lacks basic services such as clean water supplies, and access to health facilities and schools. Poverty is still predominantly a rural phenomenon in Mozambique. More than 80 per cent of poor households live in rural areas. Farming is their main source of food and income, but agricultural productivity is very low. Farmers and fishers generally make enough to meet their households' basic food requirements, with perhaps a little surplus for sale. Incomes from both farming and fishing are meagre and most of the rural population survives at subsistence level. Rural communities are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters such as droughts and floods, which recur particularly in the southern and central areas of the country. Within rural communities in Mozambique, women are particularly disadvantaged. They have considerably less access to education than men, and therefore fewer skills. Health care is inadequate and the number of women who die in childbirth is high. Most rural women work in agriculture, and are primarily responsible for food crops. Their work loads are heavy and they generally play a crucial role in generating food and income for the family. Yet they have little access to or control over productive resources. Although the 1997 Land Act affirms that women should enjoy equal access to land, in practice many women are unaware of their legal rights and those rights are not enforced. Further, the number of women who are heads of households is rising rapidly. These women have less land to farm and less food security and are more vulnerable to the natural calamities that affect the country. The central and northern provinces have higher agricultural potential than other parts of the country, more fertile soils and more abundant rainfall, and generally produce agricultural surpluses. Moving into the southern parts of the country the climate is drier, the soils are poor and natural disasters such as flooding and drought are periodic occurrences. These, together with the coastal communities which suffer extreme isolation, are the poorest areas in the country. Poverty is caused by isolation, inadequate infrastructure and the consequent lack of access to goods and services. In rural Mozambique the road network is in very poor condition and basic services are inadequate. Two-thirds of rural people have to walk more than an hour to reach the closest health unit. Only 60 per cent of them have access to safe water. Poverty in rural areas is also closely related to lack of access to education. While 82 per cent of urban dwellers have access to primary school education, the figure drops to 57 per cent for the rural population. More than two-thirds of rural Mozambicans are illiterate. Low agricultural productivity is the result of a lack of appropriate technologies and support services. It can also be attributed to the fact that produce markets are distant, unreliable and uncompetitive. Smallholders depend on traditional farming methods, low-yield seed varieties and manual cultivation techniques. Alternative sources of income outside agriculture are very few, and this increases the vulnerability of rural poor people to natural disasters. In times of scarcity they have little to buffer them from food insecurity. War, disease and natural disasters In recent decades since gaining independence, Mozambique has struggled through a series of calamities, all of which have aggravated poverty levels throughout the country, and especially in rural areas. The civil war lasted for 16 years, leaving most rural infrastructure damaged or destroyed and large portions of arable land infested with landmines. Both the civil war, and the floods and drought that followed the conflict, forced large numbers of displaced persons to migrate to urban and coastal areas. The subsequent impact on the environment has been considerable. Desertification and pollution of inland and coastal waters have become common problems in certain areas as a result. Poor rural households are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters such as drought and floods that beset the southern and central areas of Mozambique. In the wake of such events, since rural people have few income-generating alternatives to agriculture, they are immediately exposed to the threat of food insecurity. In 2002 about 66 per cent of poor farmers lost their crops to natural calamities. The prevalence of the HIV/AIDS virus in Mozambique is a further point of vulnerability for poor rural households, aggravating poverty and malnutrition levels. The number of people infected in the country is on the rise and is expected to increase and eventually stabilize in 2010, when an estimated 16 per cent of the population will be living with HIV/AIDS. The virus affects the most productive members of households and drains already meagre resources that are used mainly to pay for medical and other care. Social services and the health sector are struggling to deal with the magnitude of the situation.
Source: IFAD |
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