By MOZTIMES
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – President Daniel Chapo met on Monday with the World Bank Group’s Country Director for Mozambique, Fily Sissoko, for the official launch of a new partnership framework between Mozambique and the World Bank worth US$10 billion, covering the period from 2026 to 2031.
According to a release from Chapo’s office, the framework “is sustained by a broad portfolio of public and private financing intended to drive economic growth, job creation, and macro-fiscal consolidation”.
Speaking to reporters at the end of the meeting, Finance Minister Carla Louveira said the framework, recently approved by the World Bank Executive Board, sets out a portfolio of public investment projects to be undertaken over the next five years and valued at six billion US dollars.
Furthermore, the new framework also envisages mobilising four billion dollars for the Mozambican private sector. This money will be channelled through World Bank specialist agencies, namely the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
Some of this investment will go towards projects that have already begun, such as the Mphanda Nkuwa hydro-electric dam, to be built on the Zambezi river some 60 kilometres downstream from the existing dam at Cahora Bassa.
Louveira added that two additional lines of financing are available. One, for 450 million dollars, is for “prevention and resilience” and will be valid for three years. The second is an emergency fund of 20 million dollars which the Minister said “has already been effectively disbursed”.
This financing, said Louveira, “is intended for actions in response to emergencies in various sectors of the State”.
The funds, she said, will go primarily to the Mozambican relief agency, the National Disaster Management Institute (INGD), but also to the Ministries of Public Works and of Health “essentially to acquire foodstuffs, medicines and emergency health products”.
For the World Bank, Fily Sissoko said the new framework is centred on job creation and economic opportunities.
He regarded the meeting with Chapo as “excellent”. The President, he said, “gave clear guidelines, and one of his key messages was: implementation, implementation, implementation. Now really is the time for implementation, monitoring and guaranteeing that our financing really does reach Mozambicans, and really does improve their lives”. (MT)
