Partners create new platform for permanent dialogue with the Government

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Partners create new platform for permanent dialogue with the Government

1:16 CAT | 29 Jan 2020

FILE: December meeting. [File photo: EU in Mozambique]

Mozambique’s cooperation and development partners, led by the European Union (EU) and the United States, are creating a new platform for dialogue with the Mozambican government, the EU ambassador to Mozambique told Lusa on Tuesday.

“We have committed to creating a new mechanism for cooperation and dialogue that we call DCP – Development and Cooperation Partners, led by the EU and the USA,” with a “dual function: on the one hand, coordination between partners and, on the other, even more importantly, the dialogue with the government at different levels,” António Sánchez-Benedito Gaspar explained.

According to the Gaspar, the DCP group intends to fill a void created when Mozambique’s cooperation partners suspended their budget support programmes in 2016, following the disclosure of the loans in the amount of US$2.2 billion (about €2 billion).

“The most important thing in the budget support framework was not the funds, it was the possibility of supporting a government programme. This was accompanied by very thorough and regular dialogue” with the executive, Gaspar noted.

However, with the suspension of the budget program, “that regular dialogue has fallen away”.

The partners now intend to resurrect this dialogue on a number of levels, both technical and political.

The platform was launched in December, he added, at a meeting between the EU and US ambassadors to Mozambique and [Mozambican] Ministers of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, and of Foreign Affairs, José Pacheco. The latter has since been replaced by Verónica Macamo.

The December meeting “launched the dialogue mechanism at the highest level”, and covered topics such as the government’s five-year plan, reconstruction after last year’s two cyclones, and aspects of public finance management.

“I think this mechanism should remain in place, regardless of whether or not there is budget support. The advantage is that we have a mechanism whereby all partners, traditional or not, whatever the level of involvement with the country, may be present at a permanent dialogue table,” he concluded.

Source: Lusa