Global Food Security: Developing Global Priorities Coupled with Monitoring and Evaluation Metrics for Public Sector Projects

Mozambique is a country with a complex landscape of growth and development concurrent with persistent poverty and food insecurity. Despite having exhibited continued growth for over a decade, it maintains a rank of 172 out of 182 on the Human Development Index, one of the lowest in the world. Mozambique faces extreme geographical disparities. Most of the economic and social development projects are currently targeted at the central and northern regions, marginalizing the south. Food insecurity remains rampant and factors that continue to impede increased security include: poor land usage, continued subsistence farming without long-term potential for growth and scale, poor infrastructure, limited access to markets and malnutrition.

The Capstone workshop project produced a food security framework for Mozambique beginning with a brief situation analysis. Based on the overall needs extracted from a comprehensive country assessment, the team chose to target the areas with the most potential for immediate impact when developing our country proposal. Therefore, Phase I of the final report focuses on the current profiles of those areas, namely infrastructure (irrigation and energy), private sector, and agricultural best practices. This provides the context for Phase II, the country proposal, entitled Mozambique Agricultural Zone-Specific Extension or “MAZE” Program. MAZE is formed on the basis of having been allotted $100 million to develop a food security program proposal covering an implementation period of five years.