Investment and Social Conflict in Extractive Industries in Africa: The Case of Cabo Delgado, Northern Mozambique

Abstract

Following the rise of an insurgency in the mid-2010s in northern Mozambique, scholars have undertaken the task of exploring the driver of the insurgency considering the different actors including the government of Mozambique and Multinational corporations amongst others. Dominant views on the insurgency have not found a single root cause for the conflict and have settled on a number of causes including the socio economic and socio-political environment in the northern provinces of the country, the discovery and exploration of natural gas by MNCs and religious cleavages. Using a qualitative research approach based on existing sources and literature, this paper investigates the role of foreign investments towards the extraction of natural gas in exacerbating the insurgency in northern Mozambique, Cabo Delgado. It finds that the MNC led developments towards natural gas extraction exacerbated conflict by shining a spotlight on the socio-economic cleavages that have dominated Cabo Delgado throughout the country’s post-independence history. The state and the consortiums neglected the brewing issues in Cabo Delgado, which were years in the making and gave the insurgents ample opportunity to grow into the insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and halted economic activities in the province.