Mozambique: Japan donates €50M through new cooperation model

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Mozambique: Japan donates €50M through new cooperation model

7:45 CAT | 12 Mar 2024

Photo: AIM

Japan will donate more than €50 million for projects in Mozambique, according to agreements signed in Maputo on Friday, the first country to implement the new model of international cooperation defined by the Japanese government.

“This cooperation, in which projects in different fields are executed in the form of a package, was presented in the new Development Cooperation Charter approved by the cabinet last year. Mozambique will be the first country where Japan’s government will implement this new form of cooperation,” the Japanese ambassador in Maputo, Hamada Keiji, announced .

The Mozambican government, through the minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, Verónica Macamo, and representatives from Japan, including Ambassador Hamada Keiji, signed three donation agreements ton Friday in the form of an “exchange of notes”.

The agreements establish the supply of vehicles to Mozambique’s police forces and to improve the fight against terrorism in Cabo Delgado, as well as the Nacala Power Plant project, totalling $55.1 million (€50.4 million).

“The province of Cabo Delgado, which is the target of the projects signed on Friday, has one of the largest LNG [Liquefied Natural Gas] development projects on the African continent, in which Japanese companies are also investing. The project will contribute to Mozambique’s stability and growth and, by extension, to the stable supply of energy to Japan and the world.

That’s why improving security in Cabo Delgado is one of the most important challenges, not only for Mozambique but also for the world,” emphasised the ambassador.

The project to supply vehicles to the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) and the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) is budgeted at $2.51 million and will “increase the capacity of the police forces in Cabo Delgado” in the north of the country, “to combat terrorism”, explained the Japanese Embassy.

Regarding the Nacala Power Plant project, whose first financing agreement was signed in 2019, an addendum was signed on Friday, worth $45.91 million, financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which will “help bridge the short-term deficit between electricity supply and demand” in the country, as well as “stabilising its supply in the Nacala corridor region”.

The third agreement, worth $6.68 million, will allow the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to provide “more comprehensive support to improve the capacity of law enforcement and investigative authorities” in the prevention, investigation, prosecution and judgement of terrorism crimes on land and at sea.

“It will help in the endeavour that our brave sons and daughters in Mozambique, Southern Africa and Rwanda are undertaking to tackle terrorism. As we have said, terrorism is a phenomenon that all states must contribute to eliminating,” said Minister Verónica Macamo.

The Japanese government’s assistance to Mozambique “also stipulates support for the development of electricity in the Nacala Corridor and Japan will work to eliminate the short-term deficit in electricity supply and demand in the Nacala Corridor region and stabilise the electricity supply,” said Ambassador Hamada Keiji.

The diplomat recalled that in 2016, Japan proposed a concept of a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and assured that the country “is working to realise it”: “The projects that will be implemented in Cabo Delgado and Nacala (…) are exactly an undertaking that materialises this concept. Japan, at the eastern end of the Indo-Pacific, and Mozambique, at the western end, will work hand in hand to achieve economic development, peace and stability in the region as a whole.”

Source: Lusa