New wells and community centres with IOM in Cabo Delgado
Our small-infrastructure work with the International Organization for Migration is under way across Cabo Delgado. We began in December 2022 under IOM's programme on preventing violent extremism and building social cohesion in northern Mozambique, working alongside our Rapid District Resilience Plan. Through the first half of 2023 the work has spread across four districts.
The idea is simple. Communities tell us what they need most, and we build it quickly with local labour. Water points are going in around Palma, where the 2021 attacks destroyed much of the water network. In Namuno, community centres are rising in four locations. In Moçímboa da Praia we are building a community centre at 30 de Junho and rebuilding the adult literacy centre at Nandadua, with water point works at Nanga A in Macomia district as well.
These are modest buildings, but they carry weight. A community centre gives people a place to meet district officials, raise complaints and organise the distribution of humanitarian aid. A working well means women and children are no longer walking to distant sources late into the night. IOM's country strategy treats small-scale infrastructure chosen by communities as a way to build peace and social cohesion, and that is how we approach it too.
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