900 PROJECTS SUBMITTED FOR FUNDING IN TETE

900 income-generating projects have been submitted to the Consultative Council in the western Mozambican city of Tete, in the hope of receiving funds under the government’s Urban Poverty Reduction Programme.  The programme operates with money from the District Development Fund (FDD), which has been providing loans for projects to boost food security and provide jobs in rural districts since 2006.In urban areas funds from the FDD are allocated to income-generating projects which, it is believed, will play a role in relieving urban poverty. According to the Mayor of Tete, Cesar Carvalho, the city has received 9.4 million meticais (about 348,000 US dollars) from the FDD which reached the municipality in August. The Consultative Council and its technical team have been set up to receive and evaluate the projects. “We are behind in implementing the programme, because we received the money late”, Carvalho. “But we have set up the important bodies and we have begun to receive projects. So far we have received 900 projects, and we hope that this year the first projects to be approved will be financed”. Carvalho stressed that the Tete City Council wants to ensure that loans from the FDD are repaid – unlike what has happened in the rural districts, where repayment rates have been extremely low (usually less than 10 per cent).He said that, in order to ensure repayment, the City Council will draw on its experience of financing small income-generating projects for vulnerable women. For the past two years, the Municipality has been providing small loans for women living under difficult circumstances so that they can undertake petty trading or other small businesses. And most of these women have repaid their loans.“Our experience over these two years has shown high levels of repayment”, said Carvalho. “The repayment rate has been over 90 per cent. So we think we are prepared to implement the FDD programme successful. We are expecting good results and high levels of repayment”.   Among the priorities for funding are agricultural projects within the city boundaries in order to reduce Tete’s dependence on foodstuffs grown elsewhere in the province.