Aim
Welcome to the NICC timelines. The NICC timelines aim to share insight on Dutch international cooperation and development, and to be an entry to relevant topics and publications. The target groups of the timelines are both scholars, policy makers and practitioners. The timeline intends to provide a historical context to the water sector development in Mozambique, and the bilateral cooperation. A context, which is often underestimated by the implementers of projects, who mostly act in a pragmatic de-politised way (Chris Büscher 2021, page 1).
Dick Bouman: ‘Personally, I often missed context and discussions when I was asked to provide designs, assessments, reviews, and evaluations. Just by having made this timeline, I realise how much richer my work could have been if I had known more'.
Overview
The bilateral cooperation on water did start a two years after independence with the master planning for drainage and sewerage in Maputo. For more than 20 years, the support through so-called ‘cooperantes’ and a central coordination role of the Dutch solidarity organisation Eduardo Mondlane Stichting and the Dutch Hydrology Project were special elements of the cooperation. From 1995, the Dutch support changed, starting with increased project support. This was quickly abandoned after 1999 with the introduction of new modalities such as multilateral support and of Sector Wide Budget support. A few years later, the project approach was re-introduced to make the Dutch support more visible and concrete and give more space to private sector involvement. From 1995, the Netherlands Embassy played an important coordinating role in water on behalf of the donor community. The involvement of many water experts and companies during the entire period contributed to the image of the Netherlands as a respected partner.
Above graphs provide an overview of almost all Dutch supported projects in the water sector in Mozambique. It adds up to over 0,5 billion Euros. For better readability, one could also have a look at the pdf version. [LINK follows]
How to use the NICC timelines
The NICC timelines are structured according to different themes (water, gender, education, agriculture, climate) and different countries. On the NICC website you can find an overview of the different timelines NICC has developed. The website also offers a video gallery where you can find various interviews with experts from the field of international cooperation and a search engine for the NICC collection.
Interesting other timelines
To get a good understanding of the context of Mozambique and the overall bilateral cooperation between Mozambique and the Netherlands, one is referred to the general Mozambique timeline. The international context is covered with several interesting water time lines such as international WASH, and the Netherlands cooperation in WASH; with specific sub-themes (such as groundwater, rural WASH and urban water supply and sanitation); and with cross-cutting themes (such as for gender and water).
This timeline
This timeline describes the cooperation between the Netherlands and Mozambique in the Water Sector, which passed its 45 years anniversary in 2022. It is the first sector focused timeline for Mozambique.
In this timeline, the focus will be on drinking water, sanitation, and water management. For irrigation we plan another timeline. Several sub-themes devote a separate timeline, such as rural water supply, university cooperation in water and others. This water timeline is just a start.
Restrictions of this timeline
Timelines are meant to give context to developments and to the actual situation; to explain why the cooperation developed in this way; and what particularities are there when specifically looking at the Dutch role. The descriptions can be biased, however, and dominantly reflect a Dutch donor view. Moreover, we had to be concise and keep focus on a few specific elements in the theme.
With the bilateral cooperation we focus on all activities in which the Dutch Government has had a role. But it is not exhaustive, yet. Several aspects could have received more attention: the Dutch multilateral funding through World Bank, UNESCO, and UNICEF, or through non-governmental cooperation such as through the Eduardo Mondlane Foundation and other Dutch entities, such as Oxfam/NOVIB, ICCO/Kerkinactie/Dienst over Grenzen, HIVOS, SNV, Connect International, NUFFIC and NWO.
Although NICC already gathered a lot of information, the timelines are never finished and might require corrections. If you have input for one of the timelines, feel free to contact NICC! You can do so by sending an email to info@stichtingnicc.nl.
Timeline logics
Developing a timeline asks for a division in periods and a choice of game changing events. The division in separate periods has been arbitrary for several reasons. At first, the present timeline is combining WASH (drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene) and Water Resource Management, each characterised by specific trends and developments. And there have been long time gaps between the introduction of new policies and the practical implementation with major geographical differences (South to North and urban to rural). Lastly, the periodicity of Netherlands Development Cooperation and that of the Water Sector in Mozambique do not always coincide. The result of this is a compromise, in which some sub-themes are covering more than one single period, such as is the case for the sub-themes ‘building Regional Water Administrations’ and ‘private sector in urban water supply’.
Main Author
Main author of the timeline is Dick Bouman, who was evaluator for the first water project in Mozambique and for several recent ones He was employed by the National Directorate for Water (DNA) in the mid-eighties where he contributed to the Hydrogeological Map of Mozambique (Blog Mozambique1 and Mozambique2).
Acknowledgements
Several selected people have given their reflections on the original products. Most in-depth feedback was given by André Arsenio (Portuguese consultant), Vitens Evides International (Toine Ramakers, Joep Vonk and Germain Bakker), Chris Büscher (researcher), Hans Schoolkate (former DGIS employee in Rural Water), Huub Savenije (Professor in Water Resources at TU Delft and former DGIS bilateral expert in Mozambique), Ivo van Haren (Water Specialist at the Netherlands Embassy in Maputo and former water expert in Mozambique in the 90s and 10s) and Herco Jansen (IWRM expert and involved with Mozambique since 1992). An interview was held with Ton Negenman (former DGIS assistant expert in Mozambique and Embassy staff member during 90s and 00s). Specific checks were done with Kees Sluijs (RHDHV drainage projects in Maputo), Henk Gijselhart (former SAS project in ‘Nampula’) and others. Unfortunately, no feedback was received from approached reviewers from Mozambique, yet.
Resources
This Timeline is a product by Stichting NICC. In the creation of the website, use is made of a lot of resources, some of which make part of the NICC Collection. Where possible, links to resources are included in the text.
Main resource for this timeline has been the dissertation of Chris Büscher (2021), whose main topic was the practical translation of the Dutch Aid & Trade policy on the bilateral cooperation in water in Mozambique. Although this Aid & Trade policy was formulated in 2013, Chris’ study provides a rich reference to the entire period of 45 years bilateral cooperation in water.
Some IOB reports were extremely relevant, especially when focused on water and when Mozambique was used as a case study with a separate ‘country report’:
- Mozambique Working report of Rodts (2000; NICC A09407; A10388; E01124) for IOB 284 on institutional development [LINK follows]
- IOB 301 report (2006) on sector budget support
- CDP 2007 report in support of IOB 317 (2008) on sector support for environment and water (2008)
- IOB/UNICEF 360 (2011) case study of UNICEF programme for IOB 366 (2012) on water sector support
- IOB case study of Turner (2017) for IOB 418 (2017) report on IWRM.
References
Bouman D. (2023) Portfolio review Dutch supported water projects in Mozambique (1975 – 2023); [LINK follows]
Büscher Chris (2021). Water aid and trade contradictions: Dutch aid in the Mozambican waterscape under contemporary capitalism; PhD thesis University of London – SOAS;
CDP (2007). Evaluation of sector approaches in the water sector. Country report Mozambique. Utrecht: CDP Utrecht and Delft: UNESCO-IHE (Woersem v., B., P.J. Zijlstra P.J. and Juizo D.)
CDP (2008). Evaluation of Sector Support and Approaches in the Water Sector (Woersem B. van, Heun J.)
IOB (2000). Netherlands support to the water sector in Mozambique: evaluation of sector performance and Institutional Development (Working paper as input for IOB No 284, written by Rodts R.P.A.; especially pages 29-33); NICC A09407; A10388; E01124
IOB (2000). Institutional development. Netherlands support to the water sector. IOB-evaluation nr. 284. Den Haag: Ministry of Foreign Affairs
IOB (2008a) Het Nederlandse Afrika beleid 1998 – 2006 (Mozambique often mentioned, country description page 170-171); Evaluation Report 308
IOB (2008). Sectorsteun in milieu en water; IOB Evaluation No 317
IOB and UNICEF (2011). More than Water. Impact evaluation of drinking water supply and sanitation interventions in rural Mozambique; Mid-term impact evaluation UNICEF - Government of the Netherlands Partnership for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene 'One Million Initiative', Mozambique. The Hague: Ministry of Foreign Affairs No. 360
Version management: Original text written by D. Bouman, November 26th 2024
