MOZAMBIQUE’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE This report presents the key AICD findings for Mozambique, allowing the country’s infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of its African peers. Given that Mozambique a is poor but stable country, two sets of African benchmarks will be used to evaluate its situation: those for nonfragile lowincome countries (LICs) and those for middle-income countries (MICs). Detailed comparisons will also be made with immediate regional neighbors in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Several methodological issues should be borne in mind. First, because of the cross-country nature of data collection, a time lag is inevitable. The period covered by the AICD runs from 2001 to 2006. Most technical data presented are for 2006 (or the most recent year available), while financial data are typically averaged over the available period to smooth out the effect of short-term fluctuations. Second, to make comparisons across countries, we had to standardize the indicators and analysis so that everything was done on a consistent basis. This means that some of the indicators presented here may be slightly different from those that are routinely reported and discussed at the country level.

# Why infrastructure matters

During the past 15 years, Mozambique’s economic performance has been strong, at 7.7 percent annually. The country has also managed to make impressive strides in terms of poverty reduction. Between 1996– 97 and 2002–03, the poverty headcount index fell by 15 percentage points, the infant-and-under-five mortality rate decreased by 7 percentage points, and primary-school enrollment increased by 33 percentage points. These achievements have set Mozambique on track to attain 13 of the 21 MDG targets, including those linked to poverty, under-five mortality, maternal mortality, malaria, and an open trading and financial system (Government of Mozambique 2010).

Despite its impressive progress in both economic growth and poverty reduction, Mozambique remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Fifty-four percent of Mozambicans live below the poverty line, and access to basic infrastructure services—power, transport, water and sanitation, and telecom—are below regional averages. To maintain high rates of economic growth, reduce poverty, and make development sustainable, Mozambique needs to continue improving the provision of infrastructure services and conspicuously increasing the connectivity of people and markets.

Empirical studies linking infrastructure to economic growth underscore the importance of improving Mozambique’s infrastructure. Continentwide, during the period 2003–07, overall improvements in per capita growth rates in Africa have been estimated at 1.9 percentage points, of which about 1 point is attributable to better structural policies and 0.9 points to improved infrastructure. This contribution comes mainly from the ICT revolution, while deficient power infrastructure has held growth back (figure 1).

Looking ahead, if Mozambique could improve its infrastructure to the level of the MICs in the region, growth performance could be enhanced by as much as 2.6 percentage points per capita.

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