Africa-Press – Mozambique. Norway has offered, through the Mozambican state-owned company EDM, 30 million Norwegian kroner (€2.5 million) to strengthen the electrical infrastructure and ensure energy supply to populations affected by natural disasters in Mozambique.
“Our goal is clear: to ensure shorter interruptions, faster restoration of supply and a more reliable service for the people of Mozambique, particularly for hospitals, schools and life-sustaining water supply systems,” said Egil Thorsas, Norway’s ambassador to Maputo, on Friday.
According to the ambassador, who was speaking during the signing of the 30 million Norwegian krone Cooperation Agreement with Eletricidade de Moçambique (EDM), the partnership should, among other things, reduce the social and economic costs of disasters in Mozambican society.
“The agreement we signed today is based on years of shared experience and represents a strategic investment in resilience,” he said, reiterating that the initiative will also strengthen the most exposed parts of the electricity grid, speed up emergency repairs and rebuild infrastructure “to higher and more climate-resilient standards”.
For the official, the new fund “is not just about poles and cables,” but about protecting lives, safeguarding essential services, and ensuring that Mozambique is better prepared for a future of climate uncertainty.
Recalling recent EDM assessments of climate-related damage, Thorsas said that the public company loses between $6 million (€5 million) and $8 million (€6.8 million) annually. At the same time, its response capacity is often limited by uncertain funding and inadequate preparedness measures.
“We believe that this first contribution will reduce disruptions to the local economy and the cost Mozambique has to bear to restore infrastructure after climate disasters,” she said.
The chairman of EDM’s board of directors, Joaquim Ou-chim, said at the time that since 1977, cooperation with Norway has been crucial to the development of the national electricity sector.
The Energy for All Programme is one of the most recent examples of the success of this strategic cooperation, which has directly boosted the growth of domestic access to electricity, including on-grid and off-grid solutions, from 36.8% in 2020 to the current 65.5%, improving the living conditions of thousands of Mozambicans,” explained Ou-chim.
According to him, the new investment will strengthen and adapt the electricity infrastructure, enabling the purchase of equipment and emergency materials and strengthening EDM’s response capacity to natural disasters, “which have recently been occurring in an increasingly cyclical and severe manner.”
The African country is considered among the most severely affected by global climate change, with cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season.
