LUISA DIOGO: MY COUNTRY, ON THE ROAD TO DEVELOPMENT

This evening the Prime Minister of Mozambique at the Teatro Sociale in Trento

Mario Raffaelli: Trentino can take credit for strengthening the friendship with Italy which has existed since the time of the peace agreements

Africa is more than just a desperate land, a “lost cause” in terms of development, the continent of wars, hunger and a lack of democracy. Africa is also represented by countries like Mozambique, a country leaving behind it a disastrous civil war in 1992, with 98% of the population under the threshold of poverty, which has succeeded in obtaining lasting peace, a democratic multi-party system and which has set off on the road to development, with a growth rate of 8-10% in the GDP. This is the Africa recounted this evening by Luisa Diogo, Prime Minister of Mozambique, a country with which Trentino has developed a solid friendship over a period of many years, reinforced a few weeks ago by the trip of the President of the Autonomous Province of Trento Lorenzo Dellai, to meet the President of the Republic Emilio Armando Guebuza (who in his turn visited Trento last October) and to inaugurate an agricultural school at Caia, realised together with a consortium of Trentino associations. The evening at the Teatro Sociale was introduced by the journalist Pietro Veronese, for many years African correspondent, who recalled how Luisa Diogo, an economist with a master’s degree from London, formerly Minister of Finance before taking on the role of Prime Minister, has always done her best to reduce defence spending, which represented an obstacle for development of her country. “I will tell you a secret”– she said as regards this – “if you want to cut defence spending, there is only one way: do it immediately and in a radical, draconian manner. There is no reasoning with the military!”. In truth things have been anything but easy for Mozambique. After the signing of the peace agreements in Rome in 1992, thanks to the fundamental mediation of certain Italian players, including the Community of Sant’Egidio and an Italian government representative from Trentino, the Honourable Mario Raffaelli, who was the other guest for the evening, the route was all uphill. “In 1992 half of our infrastructures had been destroyed” – recalled the Premier of Mozambique – “there was poverty everywhere, a million people had died and a further one and a half million had fled abroad. In order to escape from this situation we passed two successive plans: the first had the objective of stabilisation in terms of peace and the development of democratic institutions, the second economic growth. The results could be seen almost immediately. In 1994 there were the first multi-party elections, followed in 1998 by the local elections and in 1999 by a general election. Thanks to economic reforms, the priority given to human resources and the development of production sectors, to reconstruction of the tax and financial system and to the multiplying effect of our intervention, we have moved from poverty of almost 100% to 54% in 2003. In the meantime, in just 5 years, we have restored almost 100% of the hospital network and overcome inflation, which has gone down from 74% to 6%, thus encouraging investment from abroad. In 2000 we had started up the second phase of development for the country, but we had to reckon with the floods. Italy once again came to our aid: at the conference of donors held in Rome, we gathered 500 million dollars. We have learnt the lesson: Mozambique is a beautiful country but it is subject to these natural catastrophes. We have therefore begun to prepare a plan to prevent them and to deal with emergencies.” However, the main problem is currently the crisis in foodstuffs. It is a global problem, due among other things to the increasingly extensive use of biofuel and to the growth in the consumption (of cereals and rice but also of meat) of the Asiatic “giants”, India and China. “Unfortunately Mozambique is not self-sufficient either in terms of wheat or rice and what is more it is not an oil producer. In one year the price of rice has risen from 200 to 1000 dollars, a rise which cannot be covered by wage increases. The impact has been felt less severely in the countryside and more in the cities. We have two roads open to us: subsidies, which personally I am not particularly enthusiastic about, or tax leverage. We have opted for the second. However we are not losing faith. We have fought for peace, as Mario Raffaelli recalls, and now when faced with the challenges of development I say: we will win!”. .