LegiStorm

Summary:

Mozambique, a significant recipient of U.S. development assistance, is a southeastern African country nearly twice the size of California, with a population of 27.9 million people. It achieved rapid growth following a post-independence civil war (1977-1992), but faces a range of political, economic, and security challenges. These include a political scandal over state-guaranteed, allegedly corrupt bank loans received by state-owned firms, which created public debt that the government did not disclose to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This placed the country's relations with the IMF at risk and has had major negative repercussions for the economy, donor relations, and Mozambique's governance record. Other challenges include unmet development needs, a range of governance shortcomings, organized crime, an ongoing economic slump, and political conflict and violence involving both mainstream political actors and violent extremists. Mozambique is also recovering from two powerful cyclones that hit the country in March and April 2019 (addressed in CRS Report R45683, Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Southeastern Africa: Humanitarian and Recovery Response in Brief). Between 2013 and 2016, the country experienced political violence arising from a dispute between the former socialist majority party, FRELIMO, and the leading opposition political party, RENAMO. (The latter is a former armed rebel group that fought the FRELIMO government during the civil war.) Their recent dispute, prompted by years of varied RENAMO grievances linked to FRELIMO's control of the state, led to numerous armed clashes between government and RENAMO forces. In 2019, the two parties signed a permanent cease-fire and a final political and military accord to end their dispute, but they have yet to fully implement those agreements, and the potential for failure remains. Since late 2017, Mozambique also has faced attacks by a violent Islamist extremist group that is active along its far northern coast. The group—known as Al Sunnah wa Jama'ah (ASWJ), among other names—has killed hundreds, often via beheading. The loan scandal has had far-reaching consequences: It has spurred local and U.S. criminal prosecutions, led some donor governments to suspend aid, undermined the state's credibility, and placed the country in debt distress, reducing its access to credit financing needed to help fund development and government operations. The scandal also is widely seen as contributing to a post-2015 slump in economic growth, which had been rapid for most of the post-civil war period. While that growth expanded the economy and contributed to a decline in extreme poverty, the majority of Mozambicans have remained poor, and while some socioeconomic indicators have improved, the country faces a range of persistent socioeconomic challenges. Development gains have remained limited despite large inflows of foreign assistance and foreign direct investment (FDI). Much of this FDI has financed large industrial projects, many of which have been criticized for being poorly integrated with the broader domestic economy—in which the informal sector and small-scale economic activity prevail—and for generating relatively few jobs or broad reductions in poverty. Mozambique's future may be transformed by the development of large natural gas reserves, discovered in the county's north in 2010. Gas exports are expected to begin in the early to mid-2020s and, together with rising exports of coal, to spur rapid economic growth. The U.S.-based firms Anadarko and ExxonMobil, the latter in partnership with Italy's ENI energy firm, lead international oil company consortia developing the reserves, although a merger involving Anadarko is likely to result in the sale of its Mozambique assets to France's Total SA. While the state may face challenges in effectively governing and managing the large anticipated influx of gas revenue, it has taken some steps to address such challenges. The government plans to establish a sovereign wealth fund to preserve gas income, which it intends to allocate, in part, to infrastructure development, poverty reduction, and economic diversification. U.S.-Mozambican ties are cordial and historically have centered on development cooperation. U.S. assistance, funded at an annual average of $452 million between FY2016 and FY2018, has focused primarily on health programs. Given recent events, U.S. engagement and aid may increasingly focus on the development of economic ties and security cooperation, notably to counter ASWJ, which is active in the area where large-scale gas processing development is underway. For many years, Mozambique received relatively limited congressional attention, but interest in the country may be growing; the country hosted congressional delegations in 2016 and 2018. U.S. humanitarian responses to the recent cyclones have also drawn congressional engagement. Developments in the country—including the rise of violent extremism and prospects for U.S. private sector investment and U.S. bilateral aid program outcomes in a context in which state corruption poses substantial challenges—could attract increasing congressional attention in the coming years.