Two Bases, One Province

The ALPS Resilience headquarters compound in Pemba, Cabo Delgado, seen from the road with its main vehicle gate.

Why ALPS Resilience now operates from both Pemba and Palma

Headquarters in Pemba since 2022 · A second operational base in Palma · 100% Mozambican field teams

Infrastructure work in northern Mozambique is decided long before anyone reaches a site. It is decided by how far the team has to travel, whether the materials are already in the province, and whether there is somewhere to keep a vehicle, a store of cement, and a crew. Organisations that fly people in and out of Cabo Delgado carry those costs on every single project. Organisations based there do not.

ALPS Resilience has worked from a permanent base in Pemba since 2022. This year we added a second, in Palma. The two sites do different jobs, and the reason for each is worth setting out plainly.

Pemba, the headquarters

Inside the ALPS Resilience compound in Pemba: offices, grounds, and fleet parking.

Pemba is where ALPS keeps its management, its administration, and the logistics function that everything else depends on. It is the provincial capital, which means it is where the supply chain actually is. Our materials move through established Pemba vendors rather than a long haul up from Maputo or Nampula, and the warehouse carries a buffer of the principal lines before a crew ever mobilises. Cement, rebar, casing, and pump spares are in the province when a project starts, not ordered when it starts.

It is also the point from which the districts where need is greatest can be reached and supervised on a regular cycle rather than visited once. Cabo Delgado's most underserved communities are spread across districts that are difficult and expensive to reach from anywhere else in the country. Sitting in the provincial capital is what makes weekly site rotation, daily contact with district administrations, and a genuine relationship with community committees possible at all.

The compound houses offices, storage, and vehicle and plant parking. The team working out of it is entirely Mozambican.

Palma, closer to the work

The newly walled ALPS Resilience compound in Palma, with its main gate installed and solar lighting in place.

Palma is a different case. It is where our largest sustained programme has been delivered, the water rehabilitation work in Palma District carried out for an energy sector client, and it is a long and difficult road from Pemba. Running that from the provincial capital alone was never the right answer.

So ALPS has purchased a site in Palma and completed the perimeter wall around it. Construction of the operational facility inside follows. When it is finished it will give the programme what it has not had until now, which is a permanent, secured base in the district where the work is, rather than accommodation taken as needed and a store improvised on site.

Inside the Palma site: the perimeter wall and gates are complete, and construction of the operational facility follows.

That matters most for the communities being served. Supervision that starts from within the district is supervision that happens. Faults get reported and fixed in days rather than at the next scheduled visit. Local crews, already resident in Palma, have somewhere to work from.

A communications hub, and an open door

There is a second reason for the Palma site, and it is about more than ALPS.

Palma has very little in the way of available facilities. Organisations arriving to work in the district face the same problem every time, which is that there is nowhere ready to operate from and nothing reliable to operate with. ALPS is building the Palma base to answer that for more than its own teams. Alongside our offices the site is being set up as a communications hub, with Starlink connectivity and supporting communications infrastructure, and it will be made available to our partners.

“A partner who can land in Palma, sit down, and get online the same day is a partner who can start work. We would rather build that once, properly, and share it.”

What this changes

Two permanent bases in Cabo Delgado, one in the provincial capital and one in the district where the delivery is, is not a symbolic footprint. It removes the mobilisation premium that sits inside most competitors' pricing in this province. It puts supervision inside the districts being served. It keeps procurement in the province and out of a two day road haul. And it gives partners working in Palma somewhere to actually operate.

ALPS Resilience delivers across Mozambique, South Africa, and Ukraine. In Cabo Delgado we are now where the work is, in both senses.

We welcome conversations with partners and funders working in northern Mozambique, and with organisations that could make use of the Palma facility.

For security reasons, ALPS does not display signage at its compounds in Cabo Delgado.