Money, planning and rural transformation in Mozambique

Abstract

This article argues that the transformation of the rural economy should proceed on a broad front which links the development of the state sector with the need to transform family agriculture through co‐operatisation. In actual fact, planning became concentrated on the state sector which received the bulk of the investible resources. Disequilibria between the planned needs of resources and their real availability destabilised the exchange between the state sector and peasant production and consequently blocked the possibilities of transforming family agriculture. This contradition expresses itself in the form of monetary disequilibrium, but it cannot be solved by monetary policy only. Rather it requires rethinking the nature of planning itself.

Notes

Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.

In writing this article I am indebted to various colleagues with whom I worked at the Center of African Studies of the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. More specifically, I am indebted to Bridget O'Laughlin, Maureen Mackintosh, Helen Dolny, Nuno Castel‐Branco, David Wield and to the late Ruth First, research director of the Center.