In this Blue Deal partnership, Dutch Water Authorities is working with five Mozambican water authorities and the water and sanitation department of the municipality of Beira to strengthen their capacity in the fields of water security, water allocation and water quality.
Mozambique is regularly hit by natural disasters. Climate change is making floods and periods of drought more intense and water quality is under pressure. This calls for effective water management. The main focus of the programme is on improving operational work processes, and training Mozambican professionals.
Young Expert Programme
The Blue Deal partnership is speeding up complex processes, like a fairer allocation of water. The partnership is investing in the long term: 10 professionals from the Young Expert Programme (YEP) have been taken on to support the water experts locally.
Michiel van der Pompe, head of development cooperation and deputy ambassador at the embassy in Maputo: “Like the Netherlands, Mozambique is a delta country. We both have a great deal of knowledge to share. Not just about water management and water governance, but also about training water experts. Capacity building is a matter of perseverance. The long-term nature of the Blue Deal programme underpins this.”
Pilot projects
The partnership is working on various pilot projects. These are aimed at timely flood prediction and protection measures, as well as measures to improve water quality, to allocate available water more fairly at times of scarcity, and to improve operational plans.
The partnership has also improved the permitting and charging system, and identified water users who had previously gone undetected. That is crucial, because water authorities rely on sufficient funding to function properly. So all users need to pay.