The Governor of Zambezia, Pio Matos, urged the cooperation partners to concentrate investments in productive areas in order to ensure greater productivity, income generation and job creation, essential prerequisites for stimulating growth.

According to Pio Matos, quoted by the newspaper Notícias, national and foreign cooperation partners must join the government's efforts in rebuilding the socio-economic infrastructure destroyed by the floods that in February and March hit the province particularly hard.

Speaking a few days ago in Quelimane city, during a meeting to evaluate the performance of programs funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Matos said that the partners should extend their activities to all districts of the province in order to reduce asymmetries.

"There are districts in Zambezia with a higher concentration of national and foreign non-governmental organizations and others not even one, a factor that contributes to the economic imbalance," said Pio Matos.

In this regard, Pio Matos called on the partners to invest in the agro-ecological, forestry, marine, mineral, and other areas, and stressed that the focus of the investment must have at its core the creation of conditions for improving the quality of life of citizens.

The Zambezia governor said on the occasion that the Government's priority is the post-cyclone Ana and Gombe reconstruction, in order to restore the infrastructures destroyed by these phenomena. In this way, Pio Matos considers the role of the partners crucial for the reestablishment of the road communication in several districts for the dynamization of the economy.

Meanwhile, the Agency for International Development and Cooperation (USAID-Mozambique) is investing more than 50 million US dollars in projects in the areas of health, education, and resilience to climate change.

The director of USAID Mozambique's Program Department, Christin Ray, said during the meeting that the province has the most projects from her institution in the country.

"Sixteen projects are being implemented in Zambezia province and another six are expected later this year," Ray stressed, adding that USAID has just approved a new development strategy for our country called "A resilient and future-ready Mozambique."