Fighting the gas rush in Mozambique
Land: Mozambique
Partner: JA! Justiça Ambiental – Friends of the Earth Mozambique
Bevilliget beløb: kr. 457,529.00
Projekt start: 2/1/2019 Projekt slut: 12/1/2020
The project “Fighting the gas rush in Mozambique” aims to challenge the impunity of the gas industry in the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique, through exposing the threat to the human rights and to the environment posed by the gas industry, its financiers and related security forces. This will be done by building an international coalition with the aim of stopping or delaying the exploitation of liquid natural gas (LNG) in Mozambique. Partnership and partners: Justiça Ambiental (JA!) Justiça Ambiental (JA!) is recognised as a leading Mozambican non-governmental organisation (NGO) working on the environmental and social impacts of Mozambique’s uncontrolled and unsustainable development. JA! was founded by a group of individuals and is now managed by two directors, an administrator and a financial coordinator. The project work is carried out by 7 technical staff members and a part-time lawyer. Afrika Kontakt (AK) AK is a solidarity movement fighting with other social movements across the globe for structural and political change to eradicate global inequality. Besides the AK secretariat which consists of 4 people, AK has more than 150 volunteers organized in groups working to support social movements in different countries, primarily on the African continent. Specifically, AK’s responsibilities in this intervention will be carried out by AK’s Mozambique Gastivist working group in collaboration with the other three Mozambique working groups in AK and the general campaign group. In this partnership JA! will contribute with intimate knowledge and experience of the country’s political, environmental and social context, being very deeply entrenched in communities and civil society in Mozambique. Furthermore, JA! has long-time, trusted and strong relationships with communities in Tete, Nampula, Zambezi and Cabo Delgado. This relationship will give AK the opportunity to engage and meet with communities to obtain their own evidence about the industry’s impact which will play an important role in the project-related campaign work of AK. On the other hand, AK will provide a strategic sparring as well as capacity sharing with JA! in order to improve the mobilization and organization of ourselves as well as JA! to ensure inclusion in political processes globally and locally.
Overordnet mål:
The objective of the intervention is to challenge the impunity of the gas industry in the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique, through exposing the threat to the human rights and to the environment posed by the gas industry, its financiers and related security forces. This will be done by building an international coalition with the aim of stopping or delaying the exploitation of liquid natural gas (LNG) in Mozambique. This intervention is action-focused and will use evidence of the impact of the industry, strengthened by first-hand information from the communities themselves, and the visualisation of the impacts that the partners and the community members capture, to hold industry to account.
Umiddelbare mål:
1. By February 2020, all possible opportunities for direct engagement with states, financiers and companies in the industry have been taken
2. By February 2020, will have an increasingly strong knowledge base made up of corporate, financial and technical research, and on the ground experiences
3. By February 2020, will have mobilised and provided further empowerment to at least 8 communities through learning from each other and about the right to say no to extractives
Målgruppe:
The intervention will provide conditions for civil society, community members and the general public in Mozambique, as well as the involved working groups in Denmark, to learn and speak out. We will organise actions before corporations and investors, e.g. by organising actions outside shareholder meetings, where we will bring forward the testimonies of community members and have their voices heard.
Primary target groups/ participants
- Communities affected by gas exploration in Cabo Delgado Province, northern Mozambique. Work will be done with 8 communities, with an average of 50 people per community. On average there are around 55% men and 45% women in the communities
- Civil society and activists working in the fields of environmental justice, climate justice, anti-corporate impunity and human rights, who we will bring in to the campaign.
- Involved mining corporations; public financiers and lenders such as export credit agencies and export/import banks; private banks; private contractors
- Governments of involved companies
Secondary target groups
- Local and international Media
- Research groups like Centro de Integridade Publica (CIP) and others
- Local and international consumers, both business and individual
- Local and international general public
- Corporate stakeholders: shareholders; board members; supply chain partners
- Youth partners through sustainability school and getting them involved in these types of issues, also taking care of gender justice among youth.
Indikatorer:
Immediate Objective 1:
- Attended at least 5 shareholder meetings in South Africa and Mozambique
- Arranged at least 4 one-on-one meetings with financiers and companies in Mozambique and South Africa Contributed to questions asked by all partner organisations in one-on-one meetings and shareholder meetings in other countries throughout the year
- With partners, written at least 10 letters to ECA’s, banks and companies.
Immediate Objective 2:
- Work with partners to produce economic and technical information output eg. Gastivists, AK, other Friends of the Earth offices
- Have done 4 field visits to observe the impact of the industry and get updates from the communities
Immediate Objective 3:
- JA! Has visited the affected communities to provide credible information about the companies involved (currently, there is a lot of confusion within communities about which company is present and what their actions mean), and discuss ways forward in the struggle
- Communities have learned from each others’ experiences and struggle
