Proper sanitation encompasses the safe handling of human excreta, maintenance of personal hygiene, health, safe disposal of solid and liquid waste, and the observance of a safe water chain. Safe sanitation in Mozambique is done by septic tanks or drainage systems in urban settings. 



While access to water has greatly improved in the past years, access to sanitation remains abysmal. In Maputo, four-fifths of households are not connected to a central sewerage system. Nationally it is worse. Only 4% of the national urban population has access to sewerage. As a result, only 10% of Maputo sewerage is treated, while the bulk (90%) end up in the sea as raw sewerage. While there is some increase in use of latrines in peri-urban areas, field defecation is still very common. Sanitation provision for schools and other public places is critical to prevent contamination. 


However most public places in slums and peri-urban areas don’t have adequate sanitation facilities, sometimes not even a latrine. The Ministry of Environmental Affairs Coordination (MICOA) has started programmes of participatory physical planning aiming to address drainage, sanitation and solid waste management, combined with preservation of green areas. The municipalities are responsible for solid waste management in urban and peri-urban areas. 


However, due to the limited capacity of the Municipal authorities to assure the service, even the communities that pay a monthly solid waste collection fee, have to rely on alternative means for their relief. In most of the peri-urban areas, solid waste is collected through community based teams from the household to the secondary disposal point. Due to the mushrooming of constructions, particularly in slum areas where planning is not obeyed, refuse vehicles and ambulances find it impossible to meander the narrow streets. The persistent challenge is how municipalities can be enabled to create and maintain an inclusive, sustainable and self-financing system for solid waste management.


Mozambique has experienced high levels of economic growth in recent years. Reliable power supplies are a potential constraint to further growth. Most of the electricity produced in the country by the Caborra Bassa hydro-electric dam is exported to South Africa and Zimbabwe. Within the country electricity is provided by the public utility, Electricidade de Mozambique (EDM). 


Electricity supply is generally unreliable and power supply interruptions damage equipment and appliances and thus hamper economic development. The government is currently putting effort to spread the electricity generated by Cahora Bassa dam to the main urban centres and capital of districts.


 However, eighty per cent of energy consumed in Mozambique is still from woody biomass – about 6 million cubic meters per year, posing a huge threat to environment through deforestation, carbondioxide emissions and other pollutants. Most of the consumption of the woody biomass occurs in slums and peri-urban areas where access to electricity is still very limited.


Public transportation in Mozambique is essentially secured by the informal sector through privately owned minibus taxis or converted passenger trucks known as “Chapas”. Public buses are operated in the main cities of the country by public companies in conditions of great difficulty due to limited revenues and scarce investment from the Government. 


The poor condition of municipal and national roads, lacking signs, maintenance, and often affected by flooding due to inadequate drainage, inhibits investments for appropriate means of transportation. Although the railway was in the past considered an effective means of transportation between the main urban centers, and linking the peri-urban areas to the central business districts, the train services suffer the same ills of poor management, maintenance and investment. The services are therefore limited and of low standard.