To date there has been little formal, empirical research that has been conducted on capacity building for disaster risk management (DRM), and as a result international actors lack robust, evidence-based guidance on how capacity for DRM can be effectively generated at national and local levels. This report on Mozambique is part of a research project designed as an initial step towards filling that knowledge and evidence gap. Two programmes emerged as appropriate case studies:

GIZ:PRO-GRCI and II (Disaster Risk Management Programme)
GFDRR / INGC / Ministry of Education and UN-Habitat Partnership: Safer Schools Project

The PRO-GRC programme was executed by INGC with advice and guidance of consultants from the German Development Cooperation (GIZ). This programme was selected because it was noted that one of the main objectives was to establish and reinforce holistic disaster risk management practice in Mozambique and that it was a large-scale programme, with a large budget and long duration. The team saw an opportunity to learn how the programme enabled government and other DRM actors in Mozambique to make better decisions on DRM and how the programme influenced the DRM context. The project included different actors and scales across national, regional, provincial, and community levels, working specifically on capacity building for DRM.The partnership programme, Safer Schools, was funded by GFDRR and UN-Habitat and so provided an opportunity to investigate how the World Bank-GFDRR approaches capacity building, in this case specifically in relation to building codes and guidelines in relation to school safety. The team was interested to learn about the inter-ministerial partnership and the very high level working groups that the project established. This project focused mainly at the national, institutional level. Both initiatives fit in with the selection criteria and reached from the national to the community level. The combination of the initiatives was believed to be an opportunity for rich findings for the fieldwork report.