Background
Mozambique lies along the eastern side of southern
Africa. Like its neighbours, the country experiences a
complex mix of social trends and natural disasters that
contribute to high levels of vulnerability that negatively
impact its development. At independence in 1975,
Mozambique was one of the world’s poorest countries.
The violent civil war that followed left much of the
country’s infrastructure in tatters and, although political
stability since the peace agreement in 1992 and the first
multi-party elections in 1994 has led to improvements
in the country’s growth rate, in 2006 Mozambique was
still ranked 168th on the Human Development Index1.
Natural disasters are a common phenomenon in the
region. In 2000, the world’s attention turned to
Mozambique as severe floods hit the Limpopo basin.
The primary cause of flooding in the country is heavy
rainfall, poor management of upstream dams and
wetlands in other parts of southern Africa, and tropical
cyclones. The country’s coastline forms almost the entire
western boundary of an extremely active tropical cyclone
belt – the south-west Indian Ocean basin – which
generates nearly 10 per cent of the world’s cyclones
annually. Tropical cyclones originating from this basin
hit Mozambique once a year on average, while lowermagnitude
tropical disturbances strike three or four
times a year. However, droughts are historically more
frequent than both floods and cyclones and impact on
more people, with the most severe drought in recent
memory occurring in 1991–1992.