Mozambique

As is the case in many African countries, Mozambique's economic structures have been disrupted by the effects of neo-colonialism, famine, war, irreversible environmental damage, and more recently, the impact of the AIDS virus and the devastation caused by floods in 1999. This has contributed to the dislocation of millions of people and has had an effect especially on women and children and on education. The situation has been exacerbated by the international debt which, because of exorbitant interest rates, keeps growing. Thus, despite its demonstrated commitment to education, Mozambique is forced to pay more than twice the amount to service the debt than it does on education and health care. Cancellation of the international debt, not merely a moratorium on debt repayments, is vital if Mozambique is ever to have even the slightest possibility of finding its feet educationally. Despite several hundred years of colonization and debilitating wars (both internally, and as a result of foreign interference), the FRELIMO government in Mozambique has devoted a large part of its energies to education. Despite the chaos left by five centuries of humiliation and exploitation, the Mozambican people and the Mozambican government have made tremendous efforts to build a new nation. There is an urgent need for international organizations, NGOs, and non-profit organizations to provide practical and financial support that has no strings attached with regard to imposing on Mozambique the philosophical option it chooses to educate its citizens. There is an equally urgent need for the international community to take co-responsibility for a country which, beginning from the times of the slave trade and continuing with the modern export of cash crops that (at the expense of much needed food crops) are grown for consumption in the developed world, has contributed so much to the prosperity and affluence of certain parts of the world yet has suffered so much in return.