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Mozambique, a country undergoing rapid transformations driven by the recent discovery of mineral resources, is one of the top destinations for Chinese and Brazilian cooperation and investment in Africa. This article provides an account of the policies, narratives, operational modalities and underlying motivations of Brazilian and Chinese development cooperation in Mozambique. It is particularly interested in understanding how the engagements are perceived and talked about, what drives them and what formal and informal relations are emerging at the level of particular exchanges. The article draws on three cases (1) ProSavana, Brazil's current flagship programme in Mozambique, which aims to transform the country's savanna, spreading along the Nacala corridor, drawing on Brazil's own experience in the Cerrado; (2) the Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre (ATDC); and (3) a private Chinese rice investment project in the Xai-Xai irrigation scheme, which builds on a technical cooperation initiative. Commonalities and differences between the Brazilian and Chinese approaches are discussed.

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In this paper, we explore the use of a governance diaries methodology to investigate poor households’ interactions with authority in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings in Mozambique. The research questioned the meanings of empowerment and accountability from the point of view of poor and marginalised people, with the aim of understanding what both mean for them, and how that changes over time, based on their experiences with governance. The study also sought to record how poor and marginalised households view the multiple institutions that govern their lives; providing basic public goods and services, including health and security; and, in return, raise revenues to fund these services. The findings show that, even if the perceptions and, with them, the concepts of empowerment and accountability that emerged do not differ significantly from those identified in the literature, in terms of action and mobilisation there are distinctions. In our research sites we found that people rarely mobilise, even faced with prevalent injustices and poor basic service provision. Many claim to be ‘unable’ to influence or force ‘authorities’ to respond to their concerns and demands.

Since long before the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in 2020, civic space has been changing all over the globe, generally becoming more restricted and hazardous. The pandemic brought the suspension of many fundamental freedoms in the name of the public good, providing cover for a deepening of authoritarian tendencies but also spurring widespread civic activism on issues suddenly all the more important, ranging from emergency relief to economic impacts. Research partners in the Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA)'s Navigating Civic Space in a Time of Covid project have explored these dynamics through real-time research embedded in civil society in Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan, grounded in a close review of global trends.

Mozambique is both one of the poorest countries and one with the highest level of vulnerability to multiple potential consequences of climate change, including drought, flood, sea level rise and increased frequency and severity of tropical cyclones -making it a natural candidate for inclusion in the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR), which aims to help poorer countries to integrate climate change response into their national development processes. This article examines the process of prioritising investments under the PPCR in Mozambique, and asks to what extent this process has demonstrated the 'country ownership' and 'broad participation' which the PPCR claims to promote. It particularly focuses on the coastal cities component of the programme, and the question of whether the opposition-controlled port city of Beira should receive priority in PPCR investments.

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