Programme with growing pains

Two of MS Mozambique´s three themes in the new programme in the southern part of the country are developing fast. The third theme, Anti-corruption, will be constructed once the two others, Building Local Democracy and Democracy in Primary Schools, are established.

By Henrik Lomholt Rasmussen, information worker, MS Mozambique

16. April 2008

To get an MS programme working from scratch can remind of constructing a house. Because just as the corner stone of a house has to be laid before you can build walls, mount doors and windows and put on a roof, parts of MS Mozambique´s focus areas cannot get in motion before other areas are implemented. Thus, three months after MS Mozambique began operating in the provinces of Maputo, Inhambane and Gaza, two of the ngo´s themes, Building Local Democracy (BLD) and Democracy in Primary Schools (DPS), are well under way, while the third, anti-corruption, is still pending. This is fully intended, says Ulla Strobech, director for MS Mozambique.

“Our work with anti-corruption relies on our two other focus areas. For instance, members of local councils must have learnt to read a budget and monitor an account before they have the possibility of discovering an eventual misuse of money,” Ulla Strobech explains.
In the same manner she points out what it takes to be able to fight corruption in the schools.
“The school councils must work in order to ensure that their members, that among other numbers parents, can follow the schools´ budgets and see what the money is being spent on,” Ulla Strobech says.

The law of education permits the existence of school councils. Still, these councils are not working less not having members. MS Mozambique wants to change this and has already begun the task. Thus in Xai-Xai, Suely Vasconcelos, assessor da educação, and UDEBA LAB, one of MS´ partners in the education area, are working on a revitalisation of the school councils.
It is also in Xai-Xai and the province of Gaza that MS Mozambique has taken the first steps in building local democracy. The work is being carried out by FONGA in cooperation with Troels Kolster, democracy advisor. On a recent field trip with representatives from FONGA in the southern part of Gaza, the 33 year old Dane noted a big need for capacity building amongst rural organisations.

“There might be funds aimed at the local districts. Still, the peasants, of whom many are illiterate, do not know how, where and when to apply for money,” Troels Kolster says and refers to a meeting with the chairman of Associação Agricultures de Magul.
“The organisation has 250 hectares of land, but is only able to cultivate 50 hectares since all the work has to be done manually. The chairman told us that AAM had tried to buy a tractor in Maputo, but that the project failed since they could not handle the paperwork,” Troels Kolster explains.

Experiences like these are being categorised by Felizberto Mulhovo, MS´ Programme Officer for BLD, that is doing a baseline study aiming at defining which level the partner organisations and their members are working at. As for the Democracy in Primary Schools, Programme Officer Moisés Mutuque is carrying out the same task.
“These studies that will be ready in a couple of months, will tell us at what level our partners and the members are. Knowing this we can define how we have to carry out the capacity building. This part of the programme needs more advisors who will be employed during 2008,” Ulla Strobech, MS Mozambique´s director, Ulla Strobech, explains.

“While democracy is based on written traditions, many of the peasants that we work with, are illiterates. This is a big obstacle to our work,” the Danish adviser underlines.

It is evident that peasants´councils are being ignored by the local councils/conselhos consultivos. Their members are often appointed and even in rural areas 80 per cent of the members are traders and townspeople meaning that the peasants are underrepresented,” underlines Troels Kolster.