As the deadline for achieving the sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) approaches, the government of Mozambique is stepping up its drinking water projects with a view to meeting the needs of the population by 2030. In the province of Gaza, in the south of the country, the government is planning to build 74 new boreholes to support existing installations.
An additional 60,000 people in Gaza will be supplied with drinking water over the next seven years. The southern province of Mozambique will be equipped with 74 new water boreholes. The future installations should be delivered by 2030 at the latest, the deadline set for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which aims to guarantee universal access to drinking water and sanitation around the world.
The drinking water project was announced on 13 September 2023 by Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi at the inauguration ceremony for a new drinking water supply system in Gaza, at the Malehice administrative post. “It is important to provide drinking water to improve the quality of life of local communities, in the midst of challenges such as water shortages and epidemics of water-borne diseases”, explained Mozambique’s Head of State. The water project, which is nearing completion, was funded by the United States of America and Great Britain.
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In Gaza, the Mozambican authorities also plan to rehabilitate 18 drinking water supply networks over the next few years. The work will be carried out in several of the province’s 14 districts. “Several provinces have already benefited from similar systems across the country, bringing drinking water to more than 18 million Mozambicans”, says the Mozambican Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources. A timid step, given that this is barely half of the country’s population, estimated at more than 34 million by 2023.
To guarantee water supply for the other 16 million Mozambicans, the government is also relying on dams, the most recent of which was inaugurated in May 2023 at Mpengo, in Manica province. The dam has a storage capacity of 12,000 m3 and will provide 100,000 m3 of water per day to communities and institutions.
Inès Magoum
