The Mozambican government announced on Thursday, 5 November, that it plans to launch within the next 90 days a National Platform for Monitoring the Maputo Declaration on Population and Development, designed to track compliance with commitments made to accelerate the country’s economic and social development.

Speaking in Maputo at the closing of the Conference on Population and Development, Minister of Planning and Development Salim Valá explained that the platform will incorporate a dashboard of indicators related to the demographic dividend, including adolescent fertility rates, early marriages, secondary school attendance, youth not in education or employment, youth employment, and maternal mortality.

The indicators will be disaggregated by province and, following the 2027 Census, also by district, enabling authorities to monitor territorial disparities and identify areas requiring greater public intervention.

Implementation of the commitments will be tracked through a colour-coded classification system — green, yellow, and red — which will allow the government to assess the level of compliance with each measure based on official data.

Valá also announced that progress will be presented annually at a public session of the Development Observatory, bringing together the government, civil society, academia, the private sector, cooperation partners, youth, and women, among other stakeholders.

A further measure involves the drafting of a Consensus or Maputo Declaration on Population and Development, intended to consolidate a limited set of commitments, each with a designated responsible party, deadline, indicators, baseline, target, and budget.

The government also intends to accelerate the revision of the National Population Policy, ensuring that the priorities identified at the conference are integrated into the state’s planning and budgeting instruments, including the Medium-Term Fiscal Framework and the Economic and Social Plan and State Budget.

In the same context, the minister highlighted the significance of the 2027 Census, which will be the first fully digital census in the country’s history, with results expected to be available within six months of its completion.

For Valá, incorporating population projections into national planning is essential to guide decisions on school construction, teacher training, the expansion of health facilities, infrastructure development, and the creation of economic opportunities at district and municipal level, so that the expansion of services keeps pace with the needs of the population.

Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/?p=559048