International African Institute

Mozambique: Norwegian Assistance in a Context of Crisis by Grete Brochmann; Arve OfstadReview by: M. HallAfrica: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 62, No. 1 (1992), pp. 144-145Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1160078 .

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labour of their children. With cash cropping, husbands and fathers challenge this control as they try to divert labour to their own fields.

At peak labour seasons, women contributed 50 per cent of the labour hours; children over 10 years of age contributed 33 per cent (girls working more hours than boys); and men contributed only 18 per cent of the total hours. When child care is included in the work load, children contributed 53 per cent of the working hours. The low involvement of the men is only partially accounted for by the fact that three were employed outside the village, for the same preponderance of female labour is reported from other African rural communities.

The fact that girls contributed more directly to agricultural production and household labour than boys is due both to the fact that women had greater control over daughters than over sons and to local assumptions about the role of women: 'The ethos of womanliness is "the dull compulsion" of daily work. Girls are reluctant apprentices' (p. 106). Boys spent much more time in travel, leisure activities and self-care, but here the record is susceptible to misconstruction. Reynolds argues that much of the boys' travel and leisure time might better be classified as social labour. Boys, especially in female-headed households, responded to inadequate household resources by cultivating the interest of older men who might be able to help them with school expenses, marriage payments and the other resources needed to provide them with a future. The assistance of kin was essential, but formal kinship ties had to be reinforced by clientship. The children actively negotiated their own future by ensuring that they became the chosen sister's sons, brothers and other kin entitled to support. They also hoped to provide against hunger when they and their families were unable to grow enough food because fields are poor, tools are few, droughts frequent and game from the neighbouring park feed on the crop.

Reynolds challenges the complacent view that rural women and children are protected by the continuation of an African ethic of kinship and by their access to land for subsistence. In Mola most children are malnourished even though they and their mothers work extremely hard. Resources drawn from the Zambezi valley have nourished both Zimbabwe and Zambia, but the people of the valley have had little enough returned to them. In her final chapter Reynolds argues for measures that would give the children of the valley a better chance in life, and their mothers a more secure existence.

ELIZABETH COLSON University of California, Berkeley

GRETE BROCHMANN and ARVE OFSTAD, with contributions by Yussuf Adam, Tore Linne Eriksen and Kenneth Hermele, Mozambique: Norwegian assistance in a context of crisis. Fantoft: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 1990, 200 pp., available free from the Institute Fantoftvegen 38, N-5036 Fantoft, Norway, ISBN 82 905884 14 8 hardback.

The Chr. Michelsen Institute's background study of Norwegian aid programmes and projects in Mozambique is for the use of the two governments concerned, but is also one of a country series and aims at a wider readership. It traces the lines of the developing emergency, giving us a frank summary of the contribution of Frelimo's past policy errors, as well as the destruction of the economic infrastruc- ture by Renamo forces. Chapter 2 takes the reader briskly through the unfolding collapse, chapter 3 the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the impact of destabilisation. Chapter 4 critically appraises Mozambique's Economic Reform Programme (PRE).

The second half of this concise report concerns itself specifically with Norwegian aid, of which Mozambique is now the second biggest recipient (Norway provided

labour of their children. With cash cropping, husbands and fathers challenge this control as they try to divert labour to their own fields.

At peak labour seasons, women contributed 50 per cent of the labour hours; children over 10 years of age contributed 33 per cent (girls working more hours than boys); and men contributed only 18 per cent of the total hours. When child care is included in the work load, children contributed 53 per cent of the working hours. The low involvement of the men is only partially accounted for by the fact that three were employed outside the village, for the same preponderance of female labour is reported from other African rural communities.

The fact that girls contributed more directly to agricultural production and household labour than boys is due both to the fact that women had greater control over daughters than over sons and to local assumptions about the role of women: 'The ethos of womanliness is "the dull compulsion" of daily work. Girls are reluctant apprentices' (p. 106). Boys spent much more time in travel, leisure activities and self-care, but here the record is susceptible to misconstruction. Reynolds argues that much of the boys' travel and leisure time might better be classified as social labour. Boys, especially in female-headed households, responded to inadequate household resources by cultivating the interest of older men who might be able to help them with school expenses, marriage payments and the other resources needed to provide them with a future. The assistance of kin was essential, but formal kinship ties had to be reinforced by clientship. The children actively negotiated their own future by ensuring that they became the chosen sister's sons, brothers and other kin entitled to support. They also hoped to provide against hunger when they and their families were unable to grow enough food because fields are poor, tools are few, droughts frequent and game from the neighbouring park feed on the crop.

Reynolds challenges the complacent view that rural women and children are protected by the continuation of an African ethic of kinship and by their access to land for subsistence. In Mola most children are malnourished even though they and their mothers work extremely hard. Resources drawn from the Zambezi valley have nourished both Zimbabwe and Zambia, but the people of the valley have had little enough returned to them. In her final chapter Reynolds argues for measures that would give the children of the valley a better chance in life, and their mothers a more secure existence.

ELIZABETH COLSON University of California, Berkeley

GRETE BROCHMANN and ARVE OFSTAD, with contributions by Yussuf Adam, Tore Linne Eriksen and Kenneth Hermele, Mozambique: Norwegian assistance in a context of crisis. Fantoft: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 1990, 200 pp., available free from the Institute Fantoftvegen 38, N-5036 Fantoft, Norway, ISBN 82 905884 14 8 hardback.

The Chr. Michelsen Institute's background study of Norwegian aid programmes and projects in Mozambique is for the use of the two governments concerned, but is also one of a country series and aims at a wider readership. It traces the lines of the developing emergency, giving us a frank summary of the contribution of Frelimo's past policy errors, as well as the destruction of the economic infrastruc- ture by Renamo forces. Chapter 2 takes the reader briskly through the unfolding collapse, chapter 3 the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the impact of destabilisation. Chapter 4 critically appraises Mozambique's Economic Reform Programme (PRE).

The second half of this concise report concerns itself specifically with Norwegian aid, of which Mozambique is now the second biggest recipient (Norway provided

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REVIEWS OF BOOKS

7 per cent of that country's total aid inflow in 1988). The main pillars-commodity aid, coastal shipping and the energy sector-have become more, rather than less, relevant as the war has progressed, especially coastal transport, which today pro- vides the only safe infrastructural links north-south, apart from air services. The report concludes that, since even if peace is established in the near future the country will remain in a situation of semi-permanent emergency for a number of years, the Norwegian aid programme should be reoriented accordingly, with emphasis on the following: (1) the primary need for aid that is targeted directly at the most affected parts of the population, including efforts to enable these people to become self-sufficient; (2) the importance of all education and training pro- grammes; (3) the necessity to strengthen institution-building-crucial for the nation-building process and for all manner of future post-war developments; (4) the necessity to concentrate investment in ventures and infrastructure that promise firm and rapid economic developments; (5) the need to provide flexible funds for recurrent costs, maintenance and repairs, etc.

There are today forty governmental and multilateral donor agencies and more than 130 non-governmental agencies active in Mozambique: as a result of the war, the economic crisis, and now the reorganisation under PRE, 'the internal economic basis has practically vanished, the physical and institutional infrastructure has been deteriorating, parallel structures and institutions are taking over distribution of relief, organising development projects, etc., and the scarce personnel are leaving for better paid jobs in the private sector, with the new NGOs or the donors. Even if a trimming of the state was necessary to ensure more effective use of scarce resources, the present trend has gone too far.' Meanwhile Mozambique is becoming excessively dependent on foreign aid. The report proposes that donors defend the nation-state by assisting in institution-building, training and transfer of skills; by facilitating co-ordination; and by strengthening the economic base, providing relief and funds for recurrent expenditure, without too many bureaucratic strings. British NGOs might like to take note.

The report is highly critical of the PRE, which it judges to have encouraged more speculative and commercial profits than actual production, plus a 're-colonisation of the economy', primarily by South African and Portuguese interests; available funds from donors and government finance 'are now increasingly channelled to types of productive activities that may not be sustainable, and do not stimulate production on a broad scale for the majority of the population'. It proposes, therefore, an open debate about alternative development strategies in which it envisages Norway taking a leading role, in contrast to its hitherto low profile, which has 'at least implicitly allowed the World Bank/IMF and their missions to dominate the scene'. Besides taking initiatives, in collaboration with like-minded donors, to support Mozambique in elaborating its own alternative development strategies, it proposes that Norway play a more active role at meetings of the World Bank, calling attention to the human aspects of development and adjustment, and the need to combine economic growth with reducing poverty. Furthermore, Norway should assess bilateral aid to Mozambique on its own merits, and not tie it to conditions formulated by the World Bank/IMF, which in concrete terms 'means that funds now used for Norwegian co-financing of the World Bank rehabilitation credits should rather be channelled directly to Mozambique as an extraordinary grant for import support'.

M. HALL School of Oriental and African Studies, London

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