Promoting an equitable and sustainable territorial development in Mozambique’s Inhambane Province

Following a request from the Ministry of Land and Environment and the Provincial Government, UN-Habitat recently embarked on  project aimed at promoting equitable and sustainable development in Inhambane.

UN-Habitat responded to this request through the project “Supporting an Integrated and Strategic Sustainable Territorial Development for Inhambane Province” funded by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD), Spain. The objective was to improve sustainability of territorial development in the Province, by strengthening provincial capacity to prioritize investments and to plan and strategize for an equitable territorial development.

The intervention allowed more than 50 officials and technicians at district, provincial and national level, to be trained in innovative data collection methods for territorial development, and to contribute to the elaboration of strategic recommendations for Inhambane Province development.

“From now on we must give continuity to the knowledge we gained in these workshops”, said Horacio Antonio Sitoe, Infrastructure and Planning District Services Technician in Vilankulo District, adding that this will happen only with “awareness raising of the community that must be engaged during the development and implementation of the land use plans so that they learn not to use land in a disorderly manner. There must always be a planned direction”.

The Province’s Executive Council, presided by Mr. Daniel Chapo, Governor of Inhambane Province, finally endorsed the Matrix of Functions Final Report.

Due to the remarkable results of the first intervention, ACCD granted a second phase of implementation, through the project “Strengthening Sub-national Dialogue on Urban and Territorial Sustainable Development in Mozambique” that is expected to start in January 2023, where UN-Habitat will provide support to the national and provincial government to finalize the PPDTI.

This Second Phase comes in the context of the upcoming elaboration of a National Urbanization Policy for Mozambique. It is therefore an opportunity to create a common strategic vision on sustainable territorial planning at sub-national level in Mozambique, starting from the capitalization of the Inhambane Province experience and best practices acquired up to now.