The Financialization of the Margins of Maputo, Mozambique

ABSTRACT

With different contours than those of the Global North, financialization logic enters and consolidates itself progressively in the African Continent, namely in the sub-Saharan region, changing the relations of power and real estate property in the urban scenario. Following this recolonization process, this article aims, from a sociourbanistic point of view, to contribute to the knowledge of its specificities in the Mozambican context and, particularly, that of the capital city, Maputo. The analysis and critical reflection focus especially on the production and transformation of the urban margins, where the majority of the urban population lives, taking as a case study the neighborhood of Polana Caniço A, paradigmatic because of the interventions that have been occurring there over the last few decades. There, a new order, simultaneously local and global, erects symbolic and physical borders, reinforcing historical processes of exclusion and segregation, through a strong alliance between the state and new urban actors.

KEYWORDS:

• financialization
• Mozambique
• Maputo
• urban margins

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. After independence, in 1975, the state, of socialist inspiration, was constitutionally declared the sole and exclusive owner of the land, refusing its sale, mortgage, or alienation.

2. Currently as a postdoctoral researcher within the project “Africa Habitat: From the sustainability of habitat to the quality of inhabit in the urban margins of Luanda and Maputo,” financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and by the Aga Khan Development Workshop, under the coordination of Professor Isabel Raposo.

3. The Program of Economic Rehabilitation lasted between 1987 and 1991. From 1992, it gave way to the Program of Economic and Social Rehabilitation, which recognized the harmful social effects of its predecessor, responding to the humanitarian crisis that emerged with the war and the returns of millions of displaced persons in the postwar period.

4. In less than 10 years, more than 1,500 companies were privatized to domestic and foreign investors (Castel-Branco, 2011, p. 27).

5. About the various urban development and housing programs see, e.g., Forjaz et al. (2006), Jenkins (1998), Melo (2015), or Raposo (2007).

6. Through the publication of Law No. 5/1991 of January 9. On the one hand, it was now possible to build for sale or leasehold and to carry on any real estate activity, duly authorized (Article 1). On the other hand, tenants who occupied state property or autonomous units of these properties could now acquire them (Article 2).

7. The new objectives and directives of this institution were promulgated by Decree No. 65/2010 of December 31th.

8. Resolution No. 10/1995 of October 17.

9. Law No. 19/1997 of October 1.

10. Decree No. 60/2006 of December 26.

11. Law No. 19/2007 of July 18.

12. The Mozambican banking system assumes oligopolistic characteristics: 17% of the banks hold 80% of the branches and are responsible for 77% of the credit and 79% of the deposits. The two principal banks, through which the state conducts its financial operations, control 62% of the deposits, 72% of the credit operations, and 53% of the branches (Castel-Branco & Massarongo, 2017a, pp. 63–65).

13. Companies involved: Prointec, a company based in Spain, responsible for the Partial Urbanization Plan, the Detail Plan and the study of infrastructure and public service needs; Salomon, a Mozambican company, responsible for the Resettlement Action Plan and the environmental and social impact; and PDNA/Econogistics, a South African company, responsible for the Local Economic Development Plan, the economic and financial feasibility study, the identification of anchor development projects, and the definition of a project promotion and implementation strategy.

14. Information about this initiative is available at https://www.casaminha.co/ (accessed February 2019).

15. Available at https://www.casaminha.co/get-involved (accessed February 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sílvia Jorge

Sílvia Jorge is a Portuguese architect who graduated from the Lisbon School of Architecture of the University of Lisbon (LSA, 2007), with a master’s degree in architecture and rehabilitation of urban centers (2009) and with a PhD in urban planning (2017). She is a member of the Urban Socio-Territorial and Local Intervention Study Group (Gestual) of the Research Center for Architecture, Urbanism and Design (CIAUD; since 2008), where she currently integrates the research project “Africa Habitat: From the sustainability of habitat to the quality of inhabit in the urban margins of Luanda and Maputo,” coordinated by Isabel Raposo and financed by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and the Aga Khan Development Network.