The Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) accuses the government of excluding civil society in the Northern Resilience and Integrated Development Program, a region affected by rebel actions since 2017.

"The Resilience and Integrated Development Program of the North has a centralized management structure. And civil society is excluded," says the non-governmental organization (NGO) in a note distributed to the media this Thursday.

The program, approved on Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, will be implemented by the Agência de Desenvolvimento Integrado do Norte (ADIN), created in March 2020 by the government to promote multiform actions aimed at the socioeconomic development of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula provinces, in the north of the country.

According to the NGO quoted by DW, the program has a budget of nearly 2.5 billion dollars and is supported by partners such as the World Bank, the European Union, the United Nations, and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

"Program does not provide for civil society participation"

CDD criticizes an alleged exclusion of civil society from the program, which is expected to be implemented over the next five years.

"The program does not foresee the participation of civil society in any support structure - supervision and coordination," stresses the NGO, which also criticizes the time it took for the document, whose name was changed, to be approved by the Government, after almost eight months.

The strategy is designed to be implemented in parallel with the Cabo Delgado Reconstruction Plan, another foreign aid action dedicated to public works, approved in September 2021 by the Council of Ministers, with a budget of $300 million.