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Getting war-affected households back on their feet: lessons from Mozambique

How can governments and donors best assist poor war-affected farm households? Nine years after peace finally came to Mozambique, what has been learnt about the ongoing effect of war on smallholder land, labour, asset and social capital endowments? Is the promotion of on-farm or off-farm income more likely to alleviate rural poverty in the aftermath of war?

A study from the University of Oxford’s Queen Elizabeth House uses data from a household survey in northern Mozambique to measure the key dimensions of household welfare - income, consumption and food consumption. The study finds that post-war reconstruction and poverty alleviation have been much slower than envisaged. When household asset endowments have been badly hit by war, donor activities to re-endow households with tools and assets can help insure households against short-term income shortfalls.

The study identifies three dimensions of the rural, war-induced poverty trap from which households are unlikely to escape. Although peasant households may have used more labour to cultivate more land, their low asset endowment and poor household technology holds them back. Secondly, war not only destroys school infrastructure but, perhaps even more seriously, destroys the demand for education as activities with higher human capital requirements became unprofitable or unfeasible. While reconstruction and funding of schools is a massive task for an indebted state, an even greater challenge lies in stimulating rural demand for skill-intensive activities. A third aspect is that the post-war environment continues to inhibit input and output markets, leaving many farm households in extreme economic isolation.

Other findings include:

Under conditions of war, highly resilient households maintained food security to an incredible degree by retreating into food subsistence production.
The main effects of the war are indirect rather than direct. Refugee households do not appear to be poorer than non-refugee households.
Social exchange may be a useful short-term coping strategy, but long term will not alleviate poverty.
The welfare effects of adopting cotton cultivation or engagement in off-farm activities have been very limited, if not negative.
Land access is a key to rebuilding post-war household welfare, but some households are individually constrained in their land access even though land in post-war Mozambique is generally quite abundant.

Among the policy implications arising from the study are:

The distinction between emergency and development policies in the post-war period is artificial. What appeared to be emergency policies (distribution of seeds and tools) turned out to have had positive long-term effects on alleviating asset constraints and increasing the household labour supply response.
In the aftermath of war, state/donor investment in education should take second place to creating markets destroyed by the war and lowering transaction costs in the rural economy.
The immediate post-war adoption of cash crops may not, after all, be desirable. Farm households should initially be encouraged to continue their war-time coping strategies which rely on basic subsistence agriculture.

Source(s):
‘Determinants of rural poverty in post-war Mozambique: evidence from a household survey and implications for government and donor policy’, Working Paper #67, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford by Tilman Bruck, March 2001 Full document.

Funded by: DFID (Escor)

id21 Research Highlight: 4 September 2001

Further Information:
DIW Berlin
German Institute for Economic Research
Königin-Luise-Strasse 5
D-14195 Berlin
Germany

Tel: +49-30-89789-591
Fax: +49-30-89789-100
Contact the contributor: tbrueck@diw.de

DIW Berlin - German Institute for Economic Research, Germany

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