Impact assessment of local initiatives to improve climate resilience in Mozambique

Mozambique is a large coastal country historically exposed to flood risks. Climate change is bringing more frequent and intensified flooding. In Mozambique and countries with related exposure context, many socioeconomic factors exacerbate the impacts of natural disasters, including poverty, poor infrastructure, and weak social institutions. By the National Disaster Management Law of 2013, legal mechanisms and policies for disaster management are currently in place in Mozambique. Since Mozambique is a low-income country, and rural sites suffer from a lack of basic infrastructure, effectiveness of coordinating mechanisms cannot be taken for granted, however.

The Mozambican Institute for Disaster Management (INGC) started a nation-wide implementation of community-based disaster risk management committees (CLGRCs) in 2002, after the devastating Southern African Floods in 2000-2001. Since then, more than 600 CLGRCs have been place in the country. So far no rigorous, evidence-based study on the effectiveness of local committees in improving local climate resilience has been performed. The present research project will fill this gap, by putting a focus on coastal cities in the Centre and in the North of Mozambique. This is because coastal cities are already today particularly affected by floods and by other hazards, including cyclones. Concerning the latter, Quelimane, Beira and also Pemba are among Africa’s most vulnerable cities.

The overall objective of this research project is to explore if urban quarters of Pemba and Quelimane (and of Beira, at a later stage) enhance pre-disaster preparedness and post-disaster resilience in comparison to quarters with no local committee present. Factors that impact the effectiveness of local committees will also be identified. The study will use a set of indicators measured at the quarter level to gauge a set of outcome measures and criteria for analysis. For data collection, we will make use of a mixed-methods approach. For sampling, we will select randomly quarters in which CLGRCs have been set up, and those in which they do not exist. Further, based on flood risk, we will select closely matched quarters for control purpose. We will then select households from each community randomly for household survey.

This study is particularly related to INGC and their current and future DRM and CCA project activities in Mozambique. Therefore, they are actively involved into all steps of preparation and implementation of field work and when workshops take place.