Ireland’s Ambassador to Mozambique Frank Sheridan answers CHARLIE JOHNSON’s questions on trade, tourism and development aid, and explains why Ireland is uniquely positioned to help Mozambique break the chains of poverty that bind it
A key function of the Irish Embassy in Maputo is the overseeing of the Irish Aid strategy. Could you pinpoint an individual project that has been particularly successful, empowering the people of Mozambique in the process?
One of them that relates to particularly poor people is where we provide home-based care to people who are living with Aids. Essentially, we have helped to provide sufficient funds to provide drug therapy to those living with Aids and the objective with that is to help those with Aids achieve a normal lifespan and diminish the number of Aids orphans. We have been very successful in moving from zero to 130,000 in care.
I went off to see how the programme was doing and I ran into some of the poorest people I’ve ever seen in my life - people who are, in every sense, living life on the edge. There was a woman there who was sitting outside what wouldn’t really pass for a grass hut. She had nine children and her husband had abandoned her when he found out she was positive, but the system we were providing to her was putting her on medication, supplying her with food, and taking her every month to get her medication checked.
And now, there is every presumption that we will bring her to a normal lifespan and her nine children will not become Aids orphans.
‘You’ll be Ireland’s ambassador in Mozambique’ – what were your initial thoughts upon hearing this, and can you recall your first impressions of the country?
When I was told I was coming here I felt honoured, but I suppose a bit insecure in taking on a fairly significant brief and a budget that at that time had a budget of over €30m, now over €40m per year. I knew Mozambique, I had been here five times before I was appointed so from that point of view I was delighted. This was my number one preference when I was applying for posts.
Are any young members of your family in Mozambique too? If so, how do they find it?
It’s been the first time we’ve been away without our family members with us, but it hasn’t quite worked out because our children won’t stay away! They keep coming and visiting! Mozambique has been a particular hit with them, and even my three grandchildren.
Aside from connections through Irish Aid projects, what else binds Mozambique and Ireland?
There is a significant similarity in history. Like Ireland, Moz-ambique has gone through a period of colonisation, of civil war, a sustained period of poverty and post-independence adjustment. It’s going through many of the same challenges that Ireland faced from the 1920s onward, and it’s encouraging for us to engage with them because it has particular meaning for us.
What is the level of trade between Mozambique and Ireland (both ways)?
It’s very, very small. Despite the size of the country, it has a relatively small population for its size at 20 million and it’s very scattered with 85 per cent of the people living in rural areas. It’s not the easiest place to do business because it is coming from a socialist background, but we are beginning to get a loosening up of regulation. That said, there is some Irish investment here from the likes of Kenmare Resources, but the scope is relatively limited.
Are any statistics available on the number of Irish tourists coming to Mozam-bique, and in your personal opinion, what tourist attraction must not be missed?
The numbers are relatively small, in the hundreds rather than the thousands… It really is a beautiful, beautiful country. The word you hear again and again in Mozambique is ‘potential’. The potential is absolutely enormous.
Mozambique has suffered through civil conflict, and more recently from drought and floods. At what point is the country in its search for economic stability, and how might Irish entrepreneurs be able to get involved (to mutual benefit)?
Mozambique at the moment is a haven of peace and stability. Most of the bitterness has been successfully ventilated. As for the economic situation, there is significant progress to report. Eighty per cent of the population in 1997 was living on less than a dollar a day to just around 50 per cent and possibly below it at the beginning of next year.
But in relation to Irish investment, it will need to be informed investment with good local partners, and as such there are a limited number of companies that could invest. I do suspect we will have to wait for the economy to develop a little bit more before aggressively pushing at Irish companies to invest.
What are the overriding characteristics of Mozambicans?
There is a different dimension here than in the rest of Africa. There is a real Latin type of culture here in terms of music and writing and a very lively dance culture. The other thing that one finds is that there is significant mixing of the races. You will find people of every colour and hue at every level and there is generally a blind indifference to colour.
