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Delivering technical assistance on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Mozambique

Mozambique, situated on the south-eastern coast of Africa, has a rich marine heritage and is a critical hotspot for marine biodiversity. Approximately two-thirds of Mozambique's population reside in coastal regions where marine resources are pivotal for food security, employment, and economic growth. However, these coastal ecosystems face significant threats from overfishing, illegal fishing, climate change, industrial development, exploitation of natural resources such as oil and gas, pollution, and extreme weather events.

Mozambique's Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) currently encompass only 2.15% of the nation's waters. These MPAs play a crucial role in conserving marine biodiversity and maintaining ecological balance. The Mozambican government is committed to the High Ambition Coalition's 30x30 initiative, which aims to protect 30% of the world's oceans by 2030. In line with this commitment, plans are underway to extend the MPA network to cover approximately 10–12% of the marine environment, enhancing conservation efforts and safeguarding marine resources for future generations.

Image of mangroves in Mozambique

Introduction

The Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP) in Mozambique is delivered under the UK Government’s Blue Planet Fund, which is designed to assist developing countries in managing their marine environments sustainably. This is being accomplished through mechanisms that also serve to enhance livelihoods and reduce poverty through technical assistance, capacity building, and policy support.

Image of Mozambique coastline as viewed from water

The OCPP team for Mozambique have identified several thematic priorities for work to support Mozambique in effectively managing human activities that impact the marine environment and ensure that all of their citizens can benefit from its long-term sustainable use. These will aim to address 5 challenges identified through scoping the OCPP support offer to Mozambique, summarised in the following figure.

Diagram of challenges, outputs, outcomes and impact

Challenges

Challenge 1: Capacity levels for science, technology, and governance, including lack of physical and staffing resources and limited access to training, at both the national, regional and local level.

Challenge 2: Competing priorities, that deprioritize marine conservation, sustainable fisheries, and climate challenges.

Challenge 3: Lack of clear and consistent economic arguments for the importance of conservation.

Challenge 4: Capabilities for effective policy implementation and enforcement, including limited infrastructure.

Challenge 5: Knowledge exchange of importance of healthy ocean ecosystems & local community involvement in decision-making.

Outputs

- Mozambique stakeholders trained and supported.
- Recommendations and guidelines developed.
- Evidence and knowledge and products developed.
- Knowledge networks and partnerships created.

Outcomes

- Improved policies that protect and conserve marine environment effectively implemented by partner countries, with strengthened preparedness to respond to emergencies.
- Enhanced and inclusive regulations that protect and conserve marine environment effectively enforced by partner countries.
- Enhanced and inclusive community in ownership, resourcing, and public-private partnership and action [including scale up of successful innovations] to effectively manage their marine environment.

Impact

Partner countries can better address the challenges to their marine environments and biodiversity, enhance marine dependent livelihoods, and the wellbeing of those that depend on them, sustainably, equitably and inclusively.

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JNCC’s Mozambique OCPP Work Areas

JNCC is leading on the OCPP work centred on Marine Protected Areas, involving capacity building and technical assistance as well supporting sustainable financing and network expansion. Additionally, focus is being placed upon environmental sensitivity to oil spills and emergency response to pollution events, the OCPP is working cross-organisation and with the Government of Mozambique to improve capacity and knowledge in this area.

The below headings summarise some of the current and past work areas undertaken across the biodiversity and emergency response themes of the OCPP in partnership with the Government of Mozambique. When outputs from these work areas become available, they can be viewed in the Resources section.

MSc Scholarships

Through the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) OCPP have awarded scholarships in Mozambique, with the aim of providing an exceptional opportunity for Mozambican students to pursue a fully funded Master’s degree in marine science. The 18 awarded MSc scholarships target early to mid-career researchers who are citizens of Mozambique and aspire to build careers in marine science. These scholarships are designed to foster world-class research in marine science.

Hosted by Universidade Eduardo Mondlane or Universidade Lúrio, these 2-year scholarships enable Mozambican students to enhance their technical knowledge, conduct important research, and develop innovative solutions to marine environmental challenges.

The goal of the scholarships is to advance scientific research that contributes to the conservation and sustainable management of marine resources, as well as to strengthen positively impact the livelihoods of coastal communities that rely on healthy marine ecosystems.

In their second year of the scholarship’s students will complete research projects with the following topics currently selected for focus:

  • Mapping the extent and assessing the status of coastal ecosystems – such as mangrove forests, sand dunes, coral reefs, and seagrass beds – to understand the potential for restoration and enhanced protection along Mozambique’s coastline.
  • Assessing the impact of climate change on critical ecosystems.
  • Developing protocols for understanding sources and impacts of pollution on the coastal and marine environment of Mozambique.
  • Data science in capture fisheries, data collection, modelling and stock assessment, particularly the impact of climate change on fish stocks.
  • Developing protocols and practices to strengthen aquatic animal health in Mozambique. aquaculture initiatives and developing associated risk modelling and data analysis.
  • Understanding the potential to protect and enhance marine ecosystems, reducing pressures and increasing resilience, and enabling sustainable use of resources.
  • Assessing the blue carbon potential in marine habitats in Mozambique.

Creating knowledge networks, partnerships and capacity building

As part of ongoing work, the OCPP have also been supporting in-country partners in Mozambique to attend and organise ocean-science related events to encourage science, education and knowledge exchange.

In June 2024, the OCPP supported the Marine Biodiversity Conference in Nacala which focused on creating an inclusive and educational environment in Mozambique, highlighting the importance of marine conservation and encouraging the active participation of the community, especially young people. This event strengthened the in-country marine biodiversity network and brought together the UK Blue Planet Fund and Mozambique Government to highlight further opportunities.

Videos of the Event:



In 2023, JNCC supported Mozambique delegates in attending key MPA knowledge exchange and training sessions relating to MPA Sustainable Finance and Mozambique-focused and regional Western Indian Ocean Marine Protected Area Network (WIOMPAN) workshops. JNCC are delighted to have established a partnership with the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association to continue OCPP’s support for facilitating Mozambique and Madagascar participation in events in 2024–2025. In April 2024, delegates from Mozambique and Madagascar were supported in attending the Blue Nature Alliance/WIOMSA Enforcement and Compliance Management course held in Kenya. JNCC is looking forward to continuing this partnership with WIOMSA to ensure regional opportunities are realised for Mozambique partners.

Upcoming Work

OCPP work in Mozambique is focused on addressing the challenges which impact on the sustainable use of the marine environment. JNCC is leading on the OCPP work centred on Marine Protected Areas, involving capacity building and technical assistance as well supporting sustainable financing and network expansion. Additionally, focus is being placed upon environmental sensitivity to oil spills and emergency response to pollution events, working with the Government of Mozambique to improve capacity and knowledge in this area. Our delivery partners at Cefas and MMO are leading on the OCPP work centred around Sustainable Seafood and Compliance and Enforcement.

There are lots of exciting ongoing and upcoming activities in Mozambique being delivered through the Ocean Country Partnership Programme, listed below are some examples of upcoming work JNCC will be involved with.

  • In partnership with the Fundação Likhulu initiative, OCPP are supporting the development of an MPA Management Training Academy which will be providing MPA management planning capacity building. The Academy will enhance MPA practitioner skillsets and improve management effectiveness across Mozambique. Through OCPP supporting a local academy being developed the aim is to provide a long-term training initiative with a high level of training quality and sustainable programme longevity.
  • Through a range of activities, the OCPP are also working to facilitate MPA managers from Mozambique becoming certified as part of the Western Indian Ocean Certification of Marine Protected Areas Professionals (WIO-COMPAS) programme. The practitioners will be supported by the OCPP through having specific training materials translated into Portuguese and the training of Portuguese-speaking assessors who will be able to continue to facilitate participation from Mozambique practitioners and possibly MPA managers from other Portuguese speaking countries within the region.

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Resources

Published pieces of work associated with the listed activities undertaken through the OCPP-Mozambique Government partnership can be found in this section and will be added throughout the programme.

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Ocean Country Partnership Programme

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