The Indian High Commissioner to Mozambique, Ankan Banerjee, has signed a memorandum of understanding worth $10 million with the Mozambican government. This funding supports a drinking water supply program that will benefit the populations of the Mueda district, in the Cabo Delgado province.
The memorandum of understanding was signed on February 14, 2022 in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Through this agreement, the Indian government is allocating 10 million dollars to the Mozambican state to support the drinking water sector.
The Indian funding, provided in the form of a grant, will strengthen the supply of drinking water in Mueda, a district of Cabo Delgado. This northern province of Mozambique has been plagued in recent months by insecurity caused by terrorists affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) group. The jihadist offensive has resulted in the displacement of 700,000 people in April 2021 alone.
According to Mozambique’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Veronica Nataniel Macamo Dlhovo, the Indian-funded drinking water project will primarily create linear networks for the transit and distribution of drinking water in the Mueda district, as well as in surrounding localities. Currently, more than 200,000 inhabitants do not have a safe source of drinking water in the district, especially in the Planalto de Mueda, which includes the areas of Chomba, Muambula and TChinga. This forces people to travel long distances to obtain the resource.
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The water supply project will be implemented under the Water for Life Program (Pravida), launched in 2018 by the President of the Republic of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi. The five-year program aims to establish an infrastructure network capable of producing 1.2 million m3 of drinking water for the benefit of more than one million people in several provinces of the East African country.
As part of Pravida, the Mueda district benefited in 2019 from a drinking water supply system. The system increased the storage capacity of Mueda, from 400 to 1,500 m3 of drinking water.
Inès Magoum
