Leading the Change: Civil Society, Rights and Environment - WWF Mozambique <b>Problem and context description</b>
	  <p>During the last three decades, Mozambique has engaged in economic, social and political rehabilitation that has led to considerable recovery, and had one of the highest growth rates in Africa. At the same time, poverty rates are falling minimally and inequality is marked between rural and urban areas and between women and men.</p>
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	  <p>Mozambique’s natural resource base is rich, but under extreme pressure. The rapid natural resource degradation and biodiversity loss is driven by unsustainable use of resources, weak governance, poverty and poor land and marine use planning. For example, forests are lost due to forest conversion to agriculture, urban expansion and infrastructure development, unsustainable commercial timber exploration and unsustainable extraction of wood for domestic uses. The linkage between poverty and natural resources is clear, with 75 % of the population engaged in subsistence agriculture or fishing and 69 % of the population being poor and living on livelihoods that are natural resource dependent.</p>
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	  <p>Mozambique has a solid legislative environment for natural resources management (NRM). The Government has shown awareness of, and political will to, protect its biodiversity and natural habitats - for instance through increasing land under formal protection and establishing a biodiversity fund and an action plan for a Green Economy. Despite this, public expenditure especially with respect to the link between policy statements and budget allocations is weak. According to the legislation, 20 % of the revenue in the game reserves should go to local communities living within reserves as a contribution to the communities for not hunting but protecting wildlife. This is not working properly as all communities are not aware of how to approach the government representatives in this issue.</p>
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	  <p>The formal civil society in Mozambique is rather young. It was only in 1990 that CSOs could be established as legal entities. Today, several key barriers still exist for optimal functioning and service delivery by CSOs across the vast and diverse provinces of the country. Besides operating in a somewhat constrained environment, the civil society still has weak structures due to limited human and financial resources. CSOs largely work on a wide spectrum of activities generally with the status of being only service providers. In recent years, there have been improvements thanks to collective efforts to organise civil society actors through Platforms with intention to build strong, collective and vibrant civil society voices. WWF Mozambique is one of the organisations working to support this process. </p>
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	  <b>Programme goals</b>
	  <p>The overall goal or desired change of the programme is that communities and stakeholders are effectively contributing to sustainable natural resource management to ensure maintenance of healthy ecosystems and accrual of equitable benefits for wellbeing of the People of Mozambique, and WWF Mozambique have identified six foundations that the programme will address.</p>
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	  <b>Programme activities</b>
	  <p>The programme will focused on; conducting trainings for CSOs on both organisational and technical issues; monitor and report on the use of taxes related to national parks; support CBNR initiatives for improved livelihood, support CSO networks and joint advocacy initiatives; and support in development and revision of policies and laws.</p>
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