Mozambique and Brazil : Forging New Partnership or Developing Dependency?

Abstract

A critical investigation of the expanding involvement of a leading emerging power, Brazil, in one of Africa's fastest growing economies, Mozambique, this book focuses on the dynamics of Brazilian development assistance, its flagship engagement in Mozambican agricultural and resource sector and the burgeoning social ties that bind them together. With elites in Brazil and Mozambique celebrating the array of ties as exemplary of South-South cooperation, this has fed the belief that the two countries are on the path to forging a new development partnership. However, controversies surrounding signature cooperation projects like ProSavana, exacerbated by the massive corruption scandals in Brazil and Mozambique have added to negative fallout within local communities in Mozambique. These complexities are explored in this book, exposing the paradoxes of Brazil's economic diplomacy and its private commercial interests, the involvement of Brazilian NGOs operating in the health sector and the role of missionaries evangelising in rural towns in Mozambique, affirming in the process both the unique characteristics of this growing relationship and the problems that it is facing in becoming truly sustainable.