Launch of the Mozambique Institutional Diagnostic organized with the Inclusive Growth in Mozambique Programme on 12 June 2019 in Maputo

The Economic Development & Institutions (EDI) Programme will organize in partnership with the Inclusive Growth in Mozambique Programme a Launch Workshop of the Mozambique Institutional Diagnostic (MID) study on 12 June 2019 in Maputo, Mozambique.

The Mozambique Institutional Diagnostic (MID) study is led by Professor Finn Tarp, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen and former Director of UNU-WIDER. This study is integrated in a research initiative called Economic Development & Institutions (EDI) and will contribute to the development of an institutional diagnostic tool, building on previous country pilots. Professor François Bourguignon (Emeritus Chair at the Paris School of Economics and former Chief Economist of the World Bank) is EDI Research Director and was one of the speakers at the event. The overall EDI project is funded with UK aid by the UK Government and managed by Oxford Policy Management (OPM). The MID started officially in February 2019 under an OPM contract with the Development Economics Research Group (DERG) of the University of Copenhagen. It has been developed in coordination with activities supported by DERG and UNU-WIDER in Mozambique within the context of the Inclusive Growth in Mozambique Programme, implemented with the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Mozambique (MEF) the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM).

One of the objectives of the EDI Programme is to design an EDI Institutional Diagnostic tool. The methodology for designing this tool relies on in-depth case studies of a select group of countries, aimed at comprehensively exploring the relationship between the characteristics and functioning of a country’s institutions and its economic development performance and constraints. The study carried out in Mozambique will build on the methodology developed for Tanzania, Benin and Bangladesh, incorporating lessons from each.

The Mozambique research team has undertaken work to produce a Background Paper that describes the historical, institutional and economic background and context of Mozambique and identifies current development challenges. It includes an analysis of the institutional performance of the country in an international perspective (regional and global) using available databases (e.g. Varieties of Democracy, Afrobarometer and Worldwide Governance Indicators, among others) and provides an initial identification and justification of potential institutional themes for further in-depth studies.

The Launch Workshop of the MID is a closed event that gathered together key people from policymakers to representatives of the private sector, civil society,  legislative and judicial powers and religious organizations, to exchange on the possible institutional challenges and bottlenecks to economic development in Mozambique. The workshop was held at the Polana Serena Hotel in Maputo, Mozambique.

Programme

About the EDI Institutional Diagnostic Tool (IDT)

Together with other ongoing EDI research, the IDT aims at contributing to the development of a set of diagnostic tools and guidelines that could be of standard application to other developing countries. No such diagnostic tool exists in the literature and the efforts began in three other countries. The institutional diagnostic study on Tanzania was completed in September 2018, the study on Benin will be published this Summer and the study on Bangladesh will be published towards the end of this year. The goal is to equip analysts and policy-makers in developing countries with a framework that will allow them to identify appropriate and effective directions for institutional reforms, which will support the promotion of economic growth.

The “institutional diagnostic” tool was originally inspired by the “growth diagnostic” tools developed by Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco, but is meant to go beyond this by revealing the causal links between basic areas of institutional weakness and their causes on the one hand, and the structure and pace of development on the other. In this research endeavour, “institutions” are broadly defined as the “formal or informal rules of the game expected to be followed, individually and collectively, by political, social and economic actors”. As such, they touch upon a variety of areas – political, judicial, economic, cultural, religious, etc.