Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Africa to the south and southwest. The sovereign state is separated from the Comoros, Mayotte and Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo.
Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, overseas province and later a member state of Portugal. It gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
The economy of Mozambique is $14.396 billion by gross domestic product as of 2018, and has developed since the end of the Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992). In 1987, the government embarked on a series of macroeconomic reforms, which were designed to stabilize the economy. These steps, combined with donor assistance and with political stability since the multi-party elections in 1994, have led to dramatic improvements in the country's growth rate. Inflation was brought to single digits during the late 1990s, although it returned to double digits in 2000–02. Fiscal reforms, including the introduction of a value-added tax and reform of the customs service, have improved the government's revenue collection abilities.
East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the African continent, distinguished by its geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the region is recognized in the United Nations Statistics Division scheme as encompassing 18 sovereign states and 4 territories. It includes the Horn of Africa to the North and Southeastern Africa to the south.
FRELIMO is a democratic socialist political party in Mozambique. It has governed the country since its independence from Portugal in 1975.
The Eduardo Mondlane University is the oldest and largest university in Mozambique. The UEM is a secular public university, unaffiliated with any religion, and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, or religion. The university is located in Maputo and has about 40,000 students enrolled.
The Mozambican Civil War was a civil war fought in Mozambique from 1977 to 1992. Like many regional African conflicts during the late twentieth century, the impetus for the Mozambican Civil War included local dynamics exacerbated greatly by the polarizing effects of Cold War politics. The war was fought between Mozambique's ruling Marxist Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the anti-communist insurgent forces of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), and a number of smaller factions such as the PRM, UNAMO, COREMO, UNIPOMO, and FUMO.
Clube de Desportos do Maxaquene, usually known simply as Maxaquene, is a sports club based in Maputo, Mozambique. The club is nicknamed Maxaca. Currently, besides football (soccer) there are two indoor sports, namely, basketball and handball. In such sports Maxaquene is the club with the most national titles after independence. Maxaquene won its first post-independence title in football, the Taça de Moçambique, in 1978. Prior to Mozambique's independence from Portugal in 1975, CD Maxaquene were known as Sporting Clube de Lourenço Marques or simply Sporting de Lourenço Marques, and was the branch number 6 of Lisbon-based Sporting Clube de Portugal. Under this name, both the legendary Eusébio and Hilário, played for the club.
Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) also known as Women of Uganda Network Development Limited is Ugandan non-governmental organization that aids women and women's organisations in the use and access of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to share information and address issues their concerns such as gender norms, advocating for their rights and building communities and businesses through education.
Sir Mohammed Fathi Ahmed Ibrahim is a Sudanese-British billionaire businessman. He worked for several telecommunications companies, before founding Celtel, which, when sold, had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries. After selling Celtel in 2005 for $3.4 billion, he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa, as well as creating the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, to evaluate nations' performance. He is also a member of the Africa regional advisory board of London Business School.
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation is an African non-grant foundation founded in 2006 by businessman Mo Ibrahim. Headquartered in London and Dakar, Senegal, it works to strengthen governance and leadership in Africa through its key initiatives:
Filipe Jacinto Nyusi is a Mozambican politician who was the fourth president of Mozambique from 2015 to 2025. He has also served as the Chairman of the Southern African Development Community from 2020 to 2022. During his time in office, President Nyusi has promoted peace and security, and signed multiple agreements with the main opposition parties, RENAMO, to bring a definitive and lasting peace to Mozambique.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is a sociologist, Professor emeritus at the Department of Sociology of the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC), Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, and Director Emeritus of the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra. An outspoken sympathizer and avowed supporter of the Bloco de Esquerda party, he is regarded as one of the most prominent Portuguese living left-wing intellectuals.
The Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), established in 2007, provides an assessment of the quality of governance in African countries. The IIAG is compiled by 81 indicators and 265 variables from 54 data projects, coming from 47 independent African and international data sources. Published every two years, the IIAG is one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of data on African governance.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Mozambique face legal challenges not faced by non-LGBTQ people. Same-sex sexual activity became legal in Mozambique under the new Criminal Code that took effect in June 2015. Discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment has been illegal since 2007.
Olivier De Schutter is a Belgian legal scholar specialising in economic and social rights, with a specific focus on the role of social rights in the fight against poverty and their status in European integration: he coined the term "the Social Constitution of Europe" to describe the role of the European Social Charter on the European continent. He served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014. He is a Professor of international human rights law, European Union law and legal theory at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, as well as at the College of Europe and at Sciences Po in Paris. He was a regular visiting professor at Columbia University between 2008 and 2012 and has regularly contributed to the American University Washington College of Law's Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He is the first chair of the Belgian Advisory Council on Policy Coherence for Development and he co-chairs the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), a group of experts from various disciplines and regions who work together towards developing proposals for food systems reform. A Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights between 2015 and 2020, he was appointed the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, and took up his functions on May 1, 2020.
The mass media in Mozambique is heavily influenced by the government. Information in Mozambique is relayed by means of television, radio, newspapers, magazines and the internet. Radio is the most popular form of media. Media outlets are regulated by the independent Supreme Mass Media Council.
Democracy in Africa is measured according to various definitions of democracy by a variety of indexes, such as V-Dem Democracy indices, and Democracy Index by The Economist.
Alice Bahumi Mogwe is a Motswana activist and lawyer. She is the founder and director of the human rights organization Ditshwanelo.
Tiago Carneiro Peixoto is a Brazilian political scientist and Senior Governance Specialist at the World Bank, who promotes participatory democracy and digital government around the globe. Recognized as an expert in e-democracy and participatory democracy, he was nominated as one of the most innovative people in democracy, as well as one of the 100 most influential people in digital government.
