Occasional Paper

Mozambique’s Foreign Policy: Pragmatic Non-Alignment as a Tool for Development

“Mozambique has been held up as a veritable poster child of post-conflict success in Africa following the maintenance of relative peace since the end of the civil war in 1992. Much of this has been thanks to a foreign policy successfully pursued on the basis of domestic needs at any given time. The paper identifies three distinct periods in Mozambique’s foreign policy where this has been adapted according to the circumstances at play: liberation and civil war, consolidation and ‘normalisation’, and attracting foreign direct investment
for development. In each of these periods, Mozambique has had remarkable success in
nurturing partnerships across divides in the international system through its key mantra of ‘making more friends, promoting more partnerships’. Ostensibly, recent and vast resource discoveries will propel Mozambique into a new era, where the proceeds of its resource wealth will be pitted against remaining socio-economic, political and developmental challenges in the country.”