The Government of Mozambique’s Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty for 2006-09 (PARPA II) is intended to reduce the incidence of poverty from 54 percent in 2003 to 45 percent in 2009.

This document is a successor to PARPA I (Government of Mozambique, 2001). It shares the same priorities in the areas of human capital development through education and health, improved governance, development of basic infrastructures and agriculture, rural development, and better macroeconomic and financial management.

The present Mozambique National Human Development Report 2005, the fifth since 1997, was produced to pose the relevance of the MDGs and their close connection with national development strategies, while at the same time reflecting on the challenges that the country must face if it is to meet the Millennium targets by 2015. While the government and the UNDP have been regularly producing joint reports on progress towards the MDGs, which basically evaluate the advances made in the country towards the established targets, at the same time as identifying the main challenges and priorities for action, this present report is an independent intellectual reflection on this same challenge, making conjectures on the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats that can be detected in specific areas covered by the MDGs.

A World Bank Poverty, Gender and Social Assessment from January 2008.

Life for most Mozambicans improved dramatically in the decade following the end of the civil war and the first free elections in 1994. Household incomes and asset holdings increased, as did access to and the quality of publicly provided services. Despite this improvement, many Mozambican households are still among the poorest in the world. More than half the population lives in poverty, with persistent gaps between farmers and city dwellers, women and men, and poor and rich. To extend the transformation that began in the mid-1990s, policymakers can benefit from taking stock of past successes while understanding more clearly the gaps and shortcomings. They need to find new ways to accelerate improvements in the living standards of all Mozambicans.