<p>This thesis investigates the theoretical dimension of fuel transition in developing countries; and assesses the role of socio-cultural factors as determinants of fuel choice at household level. Past research has focused on income as a determining factor for fuel transition, as depicted by the energy ladder model, and the more development oriented energy leapfrogging model. This thesis challenges this notion by providing empirical evidence from Catembe, Mozambique; suggesting that socio-cultural factors are just as important determinants for household energy transition. By applying psycho-anthropologic research techniques, a series of qualitative and quantitative results from 402 households in Catembe, provide a framework for understanding the core factors responsible for household cooking energy choice. It was determined that factors such as taste preferences, cooking practices, local cuisine, kitchen type, gender relations and fuel preferences are culturally determined, and significantly influence on the adoption of modern cooking technologies. To demonstrate the importance for considering such factors, the introduction of an ethanol cook-stove is simulated and evaluated in terms of its applicability to user needs and preferences in Catembe. Results show that despite meeting developmental objectives, the stove falls short in conforming to the culinary traditional of intended beneficiaries.</p>

L'objectif de cette thèse est d'explorer le rôle du capital naturel dans les stratégies de développement des pays Africains. Dans la partie 1, nous récapitulons ce que nous savons des liens entre capital naturel et développement. La partie 2 est consacrée au capital naturel dans son ensemble, à l'échelle nationale. L'objectif est de proposer un cadre d'analyse de durabilité. A travers deux cas d'étude (Madagascar et Mozambique), nous concluons sur la nécessité de mesurer l'évolution des différents stocks de capitaux des pays. Nous proposons différentes extensions de cette approche, sur le traitement du capital immatériel notamment. Dans la partie 3, nous nous focalisons sur la ressource en sol, à une échelle plus fine. D'abord, nous proposons différentes pistes théoriques pour l'analyse économique des sols. Nous entrons dans la complexité du fonctionnement de cet écosystème particulier. Ensuite, nous analysons la rentabilité sociale d'un exemple d'investissement dans ce « capital sol » : les techniques agroécologiques au lac Alaotra (Madagascar). Nous concluons sur une mise en perspective de la place de ces travaux dans le processus de décision.

<p>How affected are the sugar production in Mozambique and Tanzania by EU sugar regime? What does the EU sugar reform constitute in these countries?</p><p>Using theories regarding free trade and anti-free trade, I am able to answer these questions. The aim of this paper is to study how the various sugar agreements with EU affect the sugar production in Mozambique and Tanzania. Therefore I am using a method called a most similar system design in this comparative case study. The conclusion is that the EU sugar regime is the main reason to how the sugar productions in developing countries are. This conclusion is drawn since the difference in their developed sugar production is based on the importance of an advantageous sugar agreement. This can be applied to the case in Tanzania, which had a higher sugar export when the country had an advantageous sugar agreement with EU. Now when the trade has been more liberalized with the sugar reform the country does not have the same advantageous agreements with EU and the sugar export has been smaller. Compared to Tanzania Mozambique has had a better development in their sugar production, since their trade agreements with EU is better today than before 2001.</p>

<p>The aim of this dissertation is to explore how and under what conditions life strategies of young men and women unfold in the towns of Masasi in southern Tanzania and Montepuez in northern Mozambique. These towns are located in regions which in their national contexts are perceived as peripheral and rural. The thesis examines the life strategies of youth, with particular emphasis on livelihood, education and mobility. How the life strategies can be related to the representations of young people in national and local discourses, and how global processes are involved in young people’s daily lives are also examined. The fieldwork was conducted between 2002 and 2004 and the main part of the empirical material consists of structured and semi-structured interviews.</p><p>Many young people are under substantial pressure to support themselves and their families, but a conflict exists between the expectations on youth to contribute to the household economy and their possibilities to do so. There is also a contradiction between being needed for labour and being trusted with responsibilities. Harsh economic conditions, combined with a weak position in terms of power, increase the vulnerability of young people in these places.</p><p>Global processes influence young people’s lives, primarily expressed through changed patterns of consumption. However, there is a feeling of exclusion from globalisation in terms of work. Self-employment is promoted as a solution to poverty by the government and by various organisations, but young people contest this discourse and demand ‘real’ employment for themselves and for their children. Young people’s mobility experiences are mainly local due to a local social network and limited resources. Those with larger resources tend to be more mobile and the more privileged youth aspire to move to the larger cities or abroad. Agriculture is a complementary livelihood strategy, which implies that the rural economy still has an important function as a safety net within the urban landscape.</p>

<p>In this full thesis, I explore the impact that HIV and AIDS pandemic is having in the livelihood strategies of rural women in Mozambique. My intention in this work is to highlight the navigation of Mozambican women through this harsh era. I establish a discussion about land as major asset in a poor and mainly agricultural country like Mozambique. And the fact that many scholars and policy makers are concerned about the escalating number of young widows that have had their land and other assets expropriated after the deaths of their husbands, mainly due to the HIV and AIDS pandemic. The convergence of the colonization process, the civil war (that took over 16 years in Mozambique) and the modernization/development process have been systematically trapping women in the interface between traditional and modern social organization. Now, with the spread of HIV and AIDS, young women and children whose only source of subsistence is their land have been losing their traditional rights, and they face the cultural changes brought about by a new social order that does not support them and their children after the death of a husband or father.</p>

The aim of this dissertation is to explore how and under what conditions life strategies of young men and women unfold in the towns of Masasi in southern Tanzania and Montepuez in northern Mozambique. These towns are located in regions which in their national contexts are perceived as peripheral and rural. The thesis examines the life strategies of youth, with particular emphasis on livelihood, education and mobility. How the life strategies can be related to the representations of young people in national and local discourses, and how global processes are involved in young people’s daily lives are also examined. The fieldwork was conducted between 2002 and 2004 and the main part of the empirical material consists of structured and semi-structured interviews. Many young people are under substantial pressure to support themselves and their families, but a conflict exists between the expectations on youth to contribute to the household economy and their possibilities to do so. There is also a contradiction between being needed for labour and being trusted with responsibilities. Harsh economic conditions, combined with a weak position in terms of power, increase the vulnerability of young people in these places. Global processes influence young people’s lives, primarily expressed through changed patterns of consumption. However, there is a feeling of exclusion from globalisation in terms of work. Self-employment is promoted as a solution to poverty by the government and by various organisations, but young people contest this discourse and demand ‘real’ employment for themselves and for their children. Young people’s mobility experiences are mainly local due to a local social network and limited resources. Those with larger resources tend to be more mobile and the more privileged youth aspire to move to the larger cities or abroad. Agriculture is a complementary livelihood strategy, which implies that the rural economy still has an important function as a safety net within the urban landscape.

This thesis investigates the theoretical dimension of fuel transition in developing countries; and assesses the role of socio-cultural factors as determinants of fuel choice at household level. Past research has focused on income as a determining factor for fuel transition, as depicted by the energy ladder model, and the more development oriented energy leapfrogging model. This thesis challenges this notion by providing empirical evidence from Catembe, Mozambique; suggesting that socio-cultural factors are just as important determinants for household energy transition. By applying psycho-anthropologic research techniques, a series of qualitative and quantitative results from 402 households in Catembe, provide a framework for understanding the core factors responsible for household cooking energy choice. It was determined that factors such as taste preferences, cooking practices, local cuisine, kitchen type, gender relations and fuel preferences are culturally determined, and significantly influence on the adoption of modern cooking technologies. To demonstrate the importance for considering such factors, the introduction of an ethanol cook-stove is simulated and evaluated in terms of its applicability to user needs and preferences in Catembe. Results show that despite meeting developmental objectives, the stove falls short in conforming to the culinary traditional of intended beneficiaries.

King Ngungunyana was the lord of the mighty Gaza Empire, covering most of the interior Mozambique south of the Zambezi and parts of present Zimbabwe, when the Portuguese in 1885 were requested by the Berlin Congress to accelerate their colonization. The small enclaves around certain port towns were no longer sufficient, in order to claim the territory as one's colony. "Effective occupation" was the new precept, leading very soon to conflict with King Ngungunyana and, in 1895, the defeat of the Gaza Empire. Thus began Portugal's factual colonization of Mozambique. A few years earlier, Protestant missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission bad attempted to begin mission work within the Gaza Empire. Although invited by the King, the effort failed and the missionaries settled near the town of Inhambane, within the Portuguese realm. Catholic Missions, which had been successful during the previous centuries, had ceased to function in all Mozambique, as Religious Orders bad been prohibited since 1834. Seemingly, the arrival of Protestants to Inhambane and also to Lourenço Marques, however, stimulated the Catholic Church into action, and around 1890 new Missions were established "to combat the Protestant propaganda". Meanwhile, the American Board missionaries withdrew, and from 1893 we find American Methodists working in their stead. Part Two of the dissertation deals with the time of the Republic in Portugal, from 1910. Strongly anti-clerical, the Republicans enforced the separation of the Church from the State. This led to difficult times for the Catholic Missions in Mozambique, while it facilitated, somewhat, the task of the Protestants. However, the urge to "civilize the natives" gradually made the Republicans accept the Catholic Missions as "civilizing factors". The spirit of this period allowed for the development of the first Independent African Churches in Mozambique, as well as a first African attempt at political independence. Part Three, 1926-1960, pictures the firmer political grip of "0 Estado Novo", under dictator Antonio Salazar. Forced labour and oppression were the lot of the people, and the Portuguese Catholic Church became the "spiritual arm of the State". "Portugalization" was the new formula. This placed all education of the Africans into the bands of the Catholic Missions, simultaneously closing all Protestant village schools. The period is characterized by a "tug-of-war" between Catholics and the Protestants, who survived by experimentation with new methods and, paradoxically, grew in numbers. The final part of this dissertation, 1961-1974, deals with the Liberation Struggle of FRELIMO, and the Portuguese response. The Portuguese Catholic Church was still, unfailingly, supporting the political regime and its war efforts. Gradually, a growing force of opposition within the Church became courageously active. Meanwhile, Protestant Missions prepared for the future by "africanizing" their structures, and some were made to suffer for alleged subversion, before the "Carnation Revolution" in 1974 put a sudden end to war activities. I suggest that several elements within the Church history of Mozambique contributed to the negative attitude towards religion, which was displayed by FRELIMO during the first years of independence.

This Master thesis is the result of a study in which we looked at people's livelihoods - through the sustainable rural livelihoods analytical framework - from a coordination failure perspective. During three weeks spent in the district of Ribáuè, Mozambique, enabled us to conduct interviews with people from many different social categories and understand the conditions in which small-scale farmers live. The paper tackles issues related to development in general and governmental intervention and contributes to the debate about the type of growth which is on-going in Mozambique. What are the coordination failures that impact people's livelihoods in Mozambique, a country where strong economic growth does not seem to help the poorest to get out of poverty. / The Mozambican economy is characterised by a high level of employment in the agricultural sector. Most farmers are small-scale and farm for subsistence. As development at global level will continue to pressure these farmers to increase their productivity, the question is to know how this will affect the small-scale farmers’ capacity to improve their livelihoods. The economy of the African continent is predicted to rise substantially and countries like Mozambiquehave been praised for their staggering economic growth. However despite growth, the situation remains unchanged for many small-scale farmers. The intention of this research is then to look into the conditions in which small-scale agricultural activities take place. This study was carried out is the district of Ribáuè, located in the northern provinceof Nampula, Mozambique and adopts an abductive approach as it investigates coordination failures around farming activities. In other words, aspects concerning agricultural activities that are difficult to observe, will be included. The starting point for this argument is that it is impossible to obtain sustainable development (i.e. including small-scale farmers) without taking a holistic approach. Through this study, it becomes clear that small-scale farmers face a variety of obstacles from which patterns can be extracted. Strong emphasis is put on the importance of surrounding factors such as infrastructures, access to credit, wage work opportunities, access to inputs, extension services, and market access.  All these factors impact people’s livelihoods; and by investing in all of them in a coordinated way, it creates synergetic effects and boosts the potential for further development of each feature. This inter-connectivity becomes clear when considering that wage work opportunities are created when investments are made in the rehabilitation of infrastructures or the expansion of extension services. Furthermore, market access increases when the connectivity of remote farmers is improved and their livelihoods develop when their surplus can be sold. The amount of surplus farmers have is in turn affected by their financial capital, access to inputs, and access to extension services. Singling out one of these features as more important than the others risks missing the point and hindering sustainable development. This calls for big versatile government investments, in the form of big push policies, to ensure that these areas inter-connect and to create the highest possible levels of synergy.

<p>The question of the cultivation of cash crops in Africa south of Sahara has long been debated. We have examined the situation of cash crop cultivation for the peasant of northern Mozambique. What factors are needed for a peasant to be able to choose to cultivate cash crops and what are the effects on the peasant’s situation when cultivating cash crops? With help from James C. Scott’s theories about food security and the safety first principle see how the possibilities are for the peasant to grow cash crops.</p><p>By using the Lewis two-sector model we have examined the possibilities for a peasant of northern Mozambique abilities to make the transition from the agricultural sector to the industrial sector. We found this model insufficient to explain the transition of labour in the Mozambican society. The model needs two additional sectors to fully explain the transition in Mozambique. These sectors, cash crop and semi-industrial, are needed because the transition is too far in terms of productivity and technology. An extensive cash crop production is therefore important for the economic development. We have also found that food security is important for the peasants in order to start growing cash crops.</p>