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Business Continuity and Sustainable development
Sustainability in The Sector
The growth which Mozambique is set to enjoy over the coming decades will bring challenges as well as opportunities, nowhere less than in the area of sustainability.
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The more sustainable the investments made, the greater the legacy that Mozambique’s gas discovery will generate. This has resonance in every part of the country, from its education to its healthcare system. This section will focus on sustainability moves being made in transport and logistics.
While many of the infrastructure projects outlined elsewhere in this document will inevitably grab most of the attention, one relatively small step taken by the Mozambican government in 2017 could well end up making a massive contribution to Mozambique’s transport infrastructure, despite largely occurring under the radar: The establishment of the Maputo Metropolitan Transport Agency (AMT).
The AMT, whose vision is to ‘develop an efficient and sustainable public transport system which answers the needs of the population of Greater Maputo.’ Although there’s nothing immediately striking about the statement, from the perspective of those with a sustainability bent, the agency’s creation is nothing short of revolutionary; there is now joined-up thinking on sustainable transport in Mozambique. Sustainability will have a say in the country’s planning.
The organization has already made a series of changes, which point to a changing culture of mobility in Mozambique. These include the introduction of top-up mobility cards for passengers, night services to ensure safe mobility of people at night, buses which cater for passengers using wheelchairs and most significantly, a Comprehensive Urban Mobility Transport Plan (2019-2030) which outlines a strategy for intermodal transport and an overground metro.
In 2018, the AMT, in conjunction with the UN, launched the first annual Maputo Mobility Week, whose aim is to contribute to sustainable development of transport in Mozambique. One of the observations made during the first set of workshops was that, despite only 15% of Maputo’s residents owning a car, the city suffered from traffic gridlock on a regular basis; an unsustainable scenario which would only deteriorate as more pedestrians bought cars.
Thankfully, investments continue to be made in public transport aimed at the shortterm. These include the recent addition of 80 new gas-powered buses at the beginning of 2020, for which the AMT used a combination of public and private finances. As well as increasing public mobility in the Greater Maputo area (including some of its least connected regions), the buses should reduce toxic gases by around 10,500 tonnes per year.
The hope is that this welcome movement towards sustainability is reflected elsewhere in the country. But this will take time. While Maputo talks of an overground metro, almost
80% of Mozambique’s roads aren’t asphalted. Progress in these rural areas will be far more gradual. Increasing the country’s rail network and providing access to urban areas is a medium-term fix. More trade will also increase secondary cities’ budgets, allowing them to make improvements.
All too often, we speak of countries being at a crossroads. Where sustainability is concerned, for Mozambique, that is undoubtedly the case. Mineral wealth cannot last forever but its legacy can. The fact that Mozambique has been so underdeveloped until now means that, in many ways, it has a blank canvass that isn’t available to more developed countries when they’re developing their long-term strategic plans. Let’s hope Mozambique seizes the opportunity.
49https://www.projectstoday.com/Project-Infographics/Newsletter/Mozambique-govt-inaugurates-315-km-Niassa-Highway 50http://www.amt.gov.mz/index.php/a-amt/missao-visao-e-valores 51http://www.amt.gov.mz/index.php/documentos/outros-documentos/plano-director-de-mobilidade-dos-transportes 52https://news.un.org/pt/story/2018/06/1626812
