All would-be travellers to Mozambique are advised to read Justin Fox’s book “With Both Hands Waving” (Kwela books 2002).  Apart from many useful observations about how, and how not to travel in Mozambique, the book includes copious historical notes.  At the time that journey was done the smart tar road running west of Gorongoza crater had not been completed. 

Driving is on the left (except when dodging potholes). 

R1,00 = MTN3,10.  The standard note is MTN100 = R32 (about).  Most tourist prices are quoted in US dollars ($1,00=MTN25), to which the metacal is linked.

THE MAPUTO ROUTE: On our first visit in 2003 we decided to avoid border posts and travel from Johannesburg through Komatipoort and Maputo and then the long 2500 kilometer potholed road North.  4-wheel drive is quite unnecessary, but the potholes smashed our front shock absorbers.  The road is still not too good, but at least the terrible 100 kilometers between Rio Save and Nchope has been fixed.

THE ZIMBABWE ROUTE:

Zimbabwe road vista

The best and shortest road is the 600 kilometers through Zimbabwe via Masvinga to Forbes Post at Mutare; then down the Beira corridor through Chimoio, turn left at Nchope and then on to the new 300 km Gorongosa tar road to the Zambesi ferry at Caia.  Transit visitors to Zimbabwe may carry extra fuel which has been declared. In 2007 we experienced numerous unpleasant road blocks in Zimbabwe.  The latest unsettled election results can only make matters worse.  So, sad  to say, the Zimbabwe route should be avoided until things become stable again.

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MOZAMBIQUE

With so much hot air in the world of responsible tourism, it is a huge relief to be genuinely impressed by Nkwichi Lodge on the shores of Lake Niassa (Lake Malawi) in Mozambique.

First, the lodge itself: seven stunning thatch, wood and stone chalets hidden beneath the tree line, designed to be removed without leaving a trace; dinner under baobabs that have stood firm through 40 years of civil war and for 2,000 years before that; showers under the African sky; tiny coves of empty white sand along a freshwater lake famed for its snorkelling; and genuine peace in one of the remotest parts of Africa.

There are other places, perhaps, whose brochures could paint such a dreamy picture, but pitifully few that are so closely linked to the development of their local communities. Funding from the lodge has contributed to the neighboring Manda Wilderness Project, which — with the support and help of the local community — is turning 100,000ha of lakeside Mozambique into a community-owned conservation area.

Where decades of war and grinding poverty have destroyed the local ecosystem, tourism is now reason enough to nurture the area back to its prewar status as one of East Africa’s most ecologically abundant wilderness areas.

With support and funding from the lodge, a clinic and six primary schools have been built, basic medical training provided, and an agriculture project established to train 60 farmers in more sustainable methods of farming. Those farmers now provide fruit and vegetables for the lodge’s kitchen. The community seems to determine exactly which projects happen, and the support of the lodge — among others — makes much of it possible. An impressive partnership, but one you cannot visit without flying.

Details: www.mandawilderness.org

Nominated for Times Newspaper Green Spaces Travel Award by Alexia Woolsey, London

Maputo, Mozambique – The Arab Bank for the Economic Development of Africa (BADEA) is to contribute US$8 million to a project providing sanitation to the centre of the city of Beira in Mozambique’s Sofala province, under the terms of an agreement signed Monday in Maputo.

The funding was made official with the signing of an agreement by finance minister, Manuel Chang and by the Director-General of BADEA, Abelaziz Khélef.

The sanitation project for Beira city-centre aims to provide better conditions for public health by reducing rates of malaria, cholera and other diseases spread by stagnant water.

Mozambique’s relationship with BADEA goes back to 1975, when the first credit agreement was signed to support the Balance of Payments, to the value of US$10 million.

Since then the bank has financed around 32 projects in the areas of roads, agriculture and rural development, transport and communications, energy, health, fisheries, education and higher education, with a total of around US$176 million.

The starting point for development in Mozambique must be the rural areas, declared President Armando Guebuza on Wednesday.

Speaking at the opening session in Maputo of the Annual Meeting of the African Development Bank (ADB), Guebuza said “we shall overcome the challenges of economic emancipation by making the rural areas the nuclei of planning and development”.

He warned that the problems of rural poverty will not be solved “by the simple liberalization of prices. On the contrary, reality shows us that measures to liberalise and make flexible the economy can in the countryside generate the opposite effects, in the absence of structural measures that seek to deal with the causes of the isolation of rural areas from the rest of the national economy”.

Throughout Africa, Guebuza continued, there was a lack of transport and communications infrastructure to bring regions together and “to link centres of production with centres of consumption”. But the free functioning of markets “presupposes the existence of infrastructures that facilitate these linkages”.

To bring these infrastructures into the countryside, and to provide rural dwellers with efficient institutions providing public services “are the major challenges we face in the struggle to develop Mozambique”, he said.

“We advocate endogenous development, with strong participation by the beneficiaries, including the private sector”, the President stressed, “and which is expressed in increased agricultural production and productivity, increased household income, the creation of rural markets, and the encouragement of agro-industry”.

Turning to the sharp rises in oil and grain prices, Guebuza warned that these “have an impact on the productive sector, on the balance of payments and on the state budget. This is not just a problem of food security. We are facing a large scale social and economic problem”.

He called on the international community to commit itself more decisively “in the collective search for solutions to this challenge, which in countries such as ours can interfere in our programme to fight against poverty and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals”.

Guebuza hoped that the ADB meeting could reach consensus on the paths to follow. “We must act more speedily than the speed at which oil prices are rising”, he insisted. “Let us turn this challenge into an opportunity to strengthen our partnerships and accelerate the development of our countries”.

The Minister of Planning and Development, Aiuba Cuereneia, who is the current chairperson of the ADB’s Board of Governors, also stressed the energy and food crises. He noted that the price of a tonne of rice has risen from 373 US dollars at the start of the year to 760 dollars now. Wheat had reached the price of 412 dollars a tonne, and even maize, the staple food for much of Africa, had risen by 29 per cent, from 171 to 220 dollars a tonne.

This hit African economies severely, he said, and in particular would “increase poverty levels in African cities”. Nonetheless, Cuereneia urged African leaders to turn the threats into an opportunity “to make better use of Africa’s potential, such as its land and natural resources so that we can face the crisis by increasing production and productivity”.

MAPUTO – Vodacom Mozambique, a unit of South Africa’s Vodacom , will invest $50 million to expand infrastructure in rural areas and win market share, in Mozambique.

“We are investing $50 million in our expansion plans to build new base stations, particularly in the inner remote reaches,” Vodacom Mozambique Chairman Hermenigildo Gamito said.

Vodacom Mozambique, one of two mobile phone operators in the country, has some 40 percent of the market with around 1.5 million subscribers.

Gamito said Mozambique’s Whatana Investments, chaired by Graca Machel, the wife of South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela, had taken a 5 percent stake worth $10 million.

He added that Vodacom Mozambique planned further stake sales but will retain a majority holding.

Local shareholding in the company stands at 15 percent.

Source – Reuters 

Maputo, Mozambique – Mozambique and the World Bank have signed a one billion dollar deal to carry out high level investments in tourism based on four anchor locations yet to be identified along the southern African country’s picturesque 2,500-km coastline.
Tourism Minister Fernando Sumbana told the APA on Thursday that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank arm, is set to support the Mozambican government in the project’s implementation.

He said the Tourism Anchor Investment Program, which is a joint initiative of the IFC and the Mozambican Tourism Ministry, has secured four locations on the Indian Ocean coast, which are expected to generate one billion dollars in investment for Mozambique, and create 25,000 direct and indirect jobs in the process.

“This project is a good opportunity for large-scale investment in one of the most beautiful parts of Africa,” said Sumbana, adding that Mozambique has an exceptionally strong basis for tourism and it was now time to transform that potential into opportunities through quality investments.

“We see this project as a platform to help develop and preserve protected areas, provide international visibility for Mozambique and be a driver of the tourism economy” in the region, he said.

The four locations will include two tourist resorts, with a capacity to accept wide-scale tourism and construction of homes. The other two locations will be selected for smaller-scale eco-tourism, he added.

Mozambique is aggressively investing in its tourism sector as part of its preparations to host the bulk of the 600,000 tourists who will be descending on southern Africa to watch the month-long 2010 FIFA World Cup finals in South Africa.

Source: APA

Maputo, Mozambique – Forty three percent of Mozambique’s 227 petrol stations are located in Maputo, the deputy energy minister, Jaime Himade said Thursday in Maputo.

Himade said however that this situation would change as the government planned to expand the network of petrol stations across the country and that there were investors interested in opening them in some rural districts.

Himade was speaking during a seminar held in Maputo on the safety regulations for for petrol stations, with the Energy Ministry planning to update those regulations, which date back to 1958 and 1962.

The president of the National Energy Fund (Funae), Miquelina Menezes, recently told Mozambican news agency AIM that the government would invest around US$3 million in setting up solar-powered petrol stations in some rural districts.

She added that initially 20 of those petrol stations would be built in the provinces of Sofala, Manica, Cabo Delgado and Niassa.