Bespoke Research and Topical Issue Reporting

Contemporary Conflict Drivers in Mozambique.

This research was executed for a global mining company who required support un understanding the nature of conflict drivers in Mozambique. The project design and scope was defined in series of workshops and seminars with key stakeholders in order to precisely ascertain a range of research questions and, just as importantly, stakeholder requirements.

Keith Campbell Consulting Ltd analysed historical and contemporary drivers of change/continuity with respect to politics, economics, security, law & order, civil society, institutional capability in key ministries and parastatals, such as the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy and the state-owned mining company, Empresa Moçambicana de Exploração Mineira, and the policies and influence of key countries and global corporations.

The project made a number of insightful conclusions that dramatically improved the client’s situational awareness and ability to make long-term strategic decisions. Some examples of the main conclusions were:

• At that time Mozambique was in a long to medium-term socio-economic development cycle amidst a short-term political and security crisis. KCC provided scenario forecasting on the outcome of the escalation of tensions taking place and how the intractable security stand-off would be resolved and its critical implications for how the long to medium-term outlook would evolve.
• Analysis on how the gap in political representation was being filled following the steady loss of support for the opposition party as a result of its chosen tactic of obstruction and occasional armed action. Our analysis found that the government was acutely aware of the concern in investor ranks, and could not afford an indefinite disruption of the major mining and infrastructure projects and so had to re-establish stability and a situation where these projects grow uninterrupted.
• Outlook and evidence for the likely direction of socio-economic development and macro-economic policy that would be developed to underpin that for Mozambique’s shift to becoming a potential key growth area in Africa, with macro-economic policies that are generally well-regarded internationally.

On completion of this work the mining company had a deeper insight into the current and future development in Mozambique, enabling them to identify key risk factors in achieving growth and opportunity.