Context

Manica Province is blessed with resources but burdened by demographic pressures, entrenched poverty and growing inequality and threatened by an increasingly volatile climate. Following cyclone Idai in 2019, severe cyclones have hit Manica Province each year, and these are expected to worsen. Meanwhile, population growth (2%+) and inadequate investment in alternative livelihoods are driving land degradation and thereby increasing peoples’ vulnerability. Communities in the three landscapes targeted by this project, namely the Chimanimani, the Lower Zambezi Valley, and Chimoio, have all reported biodiversity loss not only due to deforestation but also due to land degradation, overexploitation of local biodiversity, including certain bee species. This is exacerbated by the growing demand for herbal medicine.

Although there are many efforts underway at the local level to reduce these impacts and build resilience, they are often isolated, and there is little appreciation of the connections between small local actions with broader impacts. Additionally, there is an urgent need to empower young people and recognise their leadership roles and potential. In Mozambique, young people are side-lined with established older elites running organisations, events, meetings, and processes, despite the energy, dynamism, innovation and commitment that young people in the area continuously demonstrate.

Project objectives

To create strategies for addressing climate risks by integrating traditional knowledge, scientific expertise, practices, and technologies. This includes climate-smart farming techniques, the use of indigenous food crops, and community-driven efforts in ecosystem management.

Project activities

The project will work with 30 communities across the province to highlight and support local adaptation efforts such as the planting of indigenous food crops in three landscapes. This work is focused on leveraging these existing initiatives to share learning, document practises, and influence policy at the subnational and national levels. Specifically, the project will:

• Document traditional forms of ecological governance that have been displaced by modern systems of land and resource management, and work with communities to reintegrate them.
• Work alongside existing, community-led natural resource management committees, or other local groups, to support practical actions that can create examples of how people can adapt to become more climate resilient, including forest restoration, soil and water management, and erosion control. Micaia will also work to show how these local actions lead to improved climate resilience in the face of the increasing climatic threats in Manica.
• The Gonzololo Youth Network will draw upon these examples to support a deeper understanding among urban youth about the challenges faced by their rural neighbours, specifically in Chomio. They will facilitate meetings with their members in the area to discuss local challenges and how they can address them.
• Gonzololo will also lead the schools programme in Chimoio and in the district towns of Sussundenga, Guro, Macossa and Tambara where the team, with support from an environmental education and biodiversity expert, will facilitate discussion groups and recreational activities with school children to support improved climate literacy.
• Micaia Foundation will host multi-stakeholder workshops with national government representatives, private sector players, and civil society organisations to showcase some of the challenges and success stories from their work with the aim of influencing educational programme content, provincial projects and plans, and national policies.

Project outputs

Despite the devastating drought in Central Mozambique in the first half of 2024, which caused major food shortages and significant political turmoil and related violence following the highly disputed national elections in October 2024 the project has engaged with the 30 communities that were selected based on their willingness to share knowledge, existence of a school, and accessibility for the Micaia teams.