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Flooding, Drought and Cholera in Mozambique

Zambezia, Sofala, Tete and Manica

Extensive flooding along the rivers of central Mozambique during March 2010, along with persistent drought in other parts of the same areas, has affected some of the central provinces in Mozambique. Close to 465,000 people are in need of food assistance in the Central States.   The provinces of Sofala, Manica and Tete in the center (along with southern parts of Zambezia) face a range of challenges -- crop failure, food shortage and water-borne cholera quickly spreading across overwhelmed populations.

In addition to the droughts and floods, cases of cholera in Zambezia have been on the rise as a result of the continuous flooding in the central and northern parts of the country.  Although other provinces such as Cabo Delgado, Niassa, Nampula and Sofala are also affected by the spread of cholera, sources report   that Zambezia has been hit worst by this disease. Since January 2010, there have been 1,188 cholera cases in Zambezia and 19 deaths (from IRIN News)

Limited resources and misinformation are hampering the efforts of health workers to control the outbreak in these regions. This has led to mobs who believe health workers are spreading cholera attacking health workers and community leaders in Gurue district in Zambezia, and in Moma, on the coast of Nampula.  Lack of accurate information among health workers might exacerbate the spread of disease, according to some reports -- an indication that better health-related information sources are needed for the people in that region.  The spokesperson for the health ministry, Leonardo Chavana, told AllAfrica.com, that health officials have tried to work with the communities, with traditional leaders and with local governments to explain what cholera is, how it is transmitted and how it can be prevented. But he admitted there were clearly problems of communication and of educating the public.

Information Sources in Zambezia

In Zambezia, Radio Mozambique enjoys high listenership, and respondents say in large numbers that they rely on it for news and information as well as local programming. However, besides Radio Mozambique, the radio station Nova Radio Paz, a religious radio station run by the Diocese of Quelimane in Zambezia, has moderately high listenership and 13 percent of radio listeners there said they rely on it most for its local programming.

Also, Portugal’s Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RDP) is the third most popular radio station. In fact when RDP’s overall listenership in Mozambique is broken down by province, it registers its highest listenership in Zambezia -- 28 percent (compared with 25 percent in Maputo City, 23 percent in Sofala and 19 percent in Manica). Eighteen percent of radio listeners in Zambezia said that they rely on it for news and information. This also correlates to 57 percent of radio-listening respondents from Zambezia who say they like to listen to foreign radio broadcasts.

In the Central provinces of Sofala, Tete and Manica, floods, drought and food shortage are formidable challenges facing development agencies. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network notes that 456,000 people will need food assistance from April 2010 to March 2011 in Mozambique.  However, the UN World Food Program’s country director has warned that the WFP may be able to assist only about 175,000 people. 

The real challenge for Mozambique’s central provinces is more fundamental than taking care of the food shortage. The simultaneous drought and flood in the central provinces have meant that many farmers lost their crops twice; while some of these provinces, such as Gaza, have suffered from several years of bad yields. In fact, as one Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) article suggests, the food shortage is a short-term problem, while availability of information and infrastructure for agricultural techniques better suited to combat frequent climate change in this region might be the long-term solution.  

Information Sources in Sofala, Tete and Manica 

Radio Mozambique has the highest proportion of listenership in Tete, while in Sofala and Manica, listenership is slightly lower.  When asked about where they looked for news and information on radio, radio listeners in Tete (see chart 2) vouch for Radio Mozambique. To a limited extent (17 percent) respondents also relied on BBC Radio; in fact, Tete is the only province where BBC Radio enjoys decent listenership.


When respondents were asked where they look for local programming, however, the responses were slightly different: 31 percent said they relied on Radio SIRT; 23 percent relied on Radio Mozambique; 13 percent said they relied on local community radio station RC Ulongwe (broadcasts from Ulongwe in Tete); and 16 percent said they rely on Communitaria Angonia, another community station in Tete (although Communitaria Angonia had less than significant weekly listenership).

 In Sofala, radio listenership was diverse and respondents showed fairly high listenership for many stations. But Radio Mozambique remained the undisputed hub of information -- both local and general -- when respondents were asked to rate stations.  Almost all listeners (78 percent) said they relied on Radio Mozambique for news and information as well as local programming. Radio Cidade (also state-run but principally targeting a youth audience), sports channels Radio Desperto, religious Radio Pax and Portugal’s RDP also achieve decent listenership. However, they don’t score high when respondents were asked their opinions on the stations’ relevance for news and local programming.

In Manica, too, Radio Mozambique’s leadership seems undisputed as a source for news and information as well as general listenership. But for local programming, respondents relied on sources other than Radio Mozambique -- 25 percent said that Radio CVC (not featured in chart due to low weekly listenership) was a good source for local programming and 10 percent rely on religious Radio Pax.

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A Note about Methodology: In order to collect weekly listenership data for the radio channels that were being listened to across the 11 provinces, this report used the following methodology: Respondents in the Synovate/Steadman Media Diary Survey 2009 were asked to name (first spontaneous and then prompted) radio stations they had heard of or listened to. Once this list was ascertained, the respondent was then asked when they had listened to these radio stations last (yesterday, last week, last 4 weeks, and longer than that/never). From this we tabulated weekly radio listenership for all possible radio stations and then cross-tabbed this with a variable listing the province from which the respondent belonged. Radio stations that registered higher than 15 percent listenership in any province are featured in this report.

Information and Some Key Data for this report was sourced from

INE, 2006 (Mozambique National Statistics)

Mozambique: Drought and floods bring food shortages IRIN News

Mozambique: After the Floods. IRIN News

Mozambique: Floods could aggravate seasonal cholera IRIN News

Mozambique: Cholera Situation "Stationary" All Africa.com

Mozambique: Cholera Outbreaks in Five Provinces All Africa.com

Millenium Challenge Corporation Mozambique Fact Sheet

Mozambique Aids Profile/Summary from University of California, San Francisco

United Nations High Commission on Refugees- Mozambique Profile

Mozambique: Sharp Population Growth in Maputo Province All Africa.com

Mozambique-New African Frontiers