Local and Global Determinants in the Emergency of Social solidarity: the case study of Maputo City, in Mozambique

1. INTRODUCTION

Moçambique became independent in 1975 after an armed liberation struggle. It then passed through various phases of change at the political, economic and social level. The political system adopted in 1975 was structured internally by socialist precepts while externally its posture was non-aligned (Hanlon 1991). The economic strategies introduced by the government between 1974-75 and 1983-84 had the objective of transforming social relations of production and making the country independent of the world capitalist system, but in the event proved to be the least adequate solution to the economic and social problems existing in the country.

Increasing conflict in the economic, political, social and cultural areas led to the outbreak of war which reached its greatest intensity in the 1980s. The attempt to correct prevailing problems, together with international pressure (in southern Africa and more generally) led to changes in FRELIMO foreign policy, in its relations with multilateral agencies and also to changes in domestic policy.

After a period dominated by centralised economic planning, 1985 brought the first steps towards liberalisation. In 1987, the reform process underlying the transformation from socialist to a capitalist market economy was consolidated and enshrined with the adoption of the Economic Rehabilitation Programme. This was designed to invert negative economic growth through structural adjustment. It was followed in 1990 by the more refined Economic and Social Rehabilitation Programme.

The subordination of the state to structural adjustment programmes and the resulting reform programme had direct consequences for the state's budgeted social spending, eroding its capacity to contain the impact of neo-liberal policies. Already weakened and discredited by war and destabilisation, the state was now to prove incapable of promoting social welfare for its citizens through basic services such as health care, education, water supply and public sanitation. This resulted in part of social administration being transferred to 'civil society', which came to exercise many of the functions connected with the promotion of social welfare through NGOs, associations and various solidarity networks based on primary relationships existing in society (kinship, neighbourhood, work groupings, ethnic links, friendship, etc.)

The erosion of the state brought with it the erosion of citizenship and the loss of citizens' social and political rights, as well as the acceleration of the onset of poverty and exclusion (Bjorn Hettne, 2000: 35-36; Pedro Hespanha, 2001: 174-175). It is a situation which is aggravated by the existence of 'formal democracy', which was largely imposed 'as a condition for international assistance' (Santos, B.S. 2001: 32 ). Put in the position of having to negotiate economic programmes simultaneously with external and internal bodies – as has occurred in other African countries during the 1990s (Ho-Won Jeng, 1997: 84) – Mozambique was also pressed by western countries and multilateral agencies to adopt a pluralist democratic system. The new context came reinforce the power of the elites, promoting illicit privatisation and the parallel economy, and creating a field wide open for the development of corruption, violence and the weakening of law and order.

Maputo, our case study, is characterised by inadequate urban development: i) sharply increased unemployment and the growth of informal activity; ii) the uncontrolled use and exhaustion of forest resources surrounding the city, with the consequent ecological imbalances; iii) problems of access to education and health services; iv) intensified unplanned and uncontrolled settlement in areas near economic and service centres and transport networks; v) marked deterioration of living conditions as a result of the constant arrival of new inhabitants with no new authorised construction; vi) uncontrolled occupation of reserved areas and use of urban land.

In the context to which this study refers – including a process of urbanisation marked by a large rural-urban influx – social relations created in heart of society are vital in that they generate mechanisms which support coping with daily life as well as the development of long term strategies. Thus, on the one hand, it is not possible to ignore the fact that many norms of the rural milieu are transferred and adapted to the urban context, and that they are relevant for understanding the system of rights and obligations which are integral to many such urban groups: customary norms continue to offer a certain security in the process of social relations. On the other hand, we find cases of the redefinition of survival strategies. In other words, it is a situation which may not only reinforce 'customary norms' but also create new relations of solidarity, where, for example, relations of neighbourliness come to play a fundamental role in the development of solidarity links and mutual aid.

2- NETWORKS OF SOCIAL SUPPORT: THE IMPOSITION OF MODELS OF SOCIAL WELFARE

The level of economic and social degradation of the population resulting from the various crises Mozambique has encountered increased markedly in the 1980s and 1990s, owing to war and to the post war economy. Refugees, migrants returning from neighbouring countries and the GDR and demobilised soldiers created further pressure on zones already affected by rural-urban migration, such as Maputo city. The increased vulnerability of already impoverished families brought about by economic reforms diminished their already weak margin of survival.

An illustration of the degradation of the quality of life in the 1990s, particularly of the urban poor, can be given through the profile of inhabitants of Maputo city periphery which formed the object of our study, and which suffer problems such as: i) difficult access to education, health, potable water, electricity, transports and sanitation services; ii) unemployment or underemployment, with most working in the informal sector as the only available survival strategy; iii) low wages and income; iv) dependence on small scale agriculture to complement family income; v) high levels of crime, and a general sense of physical and social insecurity social.

The uncontrolled development of Maputo, with its high levels of poverty, growing unemployment, diminishing opportunities and increased exclusion has left the majority of citizens little possibility of employment in the formal sector. This has been worsened by the very system of urban production, which is based on capital intensive services and industry, such that in the absence of capital the informal sector remains the only alternative (National Social Development Summit, Copenhagen, 1995). Thus Ardeni, cited in the National Human Development Report for Mozambique reports that: '84.6% of workers in Mozambique appear to be employed in the informal sector: 92,6% of rural workers and 65% of all workers in urban areas' (UNDP, 2001: 83).

The level of access to basic services (education, health, essential goods and services: clean water, and sanitation), is one of the indicators used to evaluate the quality and longevity of life of individuals. As already mentioned, public social policies already weakened through successive crises were undermined by the imposition of economic measures by multilateral agencies during the process of joining Bretton Woods institutions. This has drastically reduced access to basic social services. The pressure of these agencies condition the structure of public social policy to the cost-benefit relationship 'which marginalises and makes social justice a secondary issue' (UNDP, 2001).

An analysis of the programmes constituting the formal Network of Social Welfare in Mozambique leads us to observe that: i) it is manifestly insufficient to contain the effects of the economic and social crises the country faces; ii) it functions with various constraints owing to the lack of resources and particularly restrictions on public spending; iii) it is characterised by a lack of clarity in the selection of the target population, using an ambiguous concept of vulnerability; iv) rather than protecting the poor, it aims more to limit poverty in some groups such as: the elderly, widowed heads of families and/or families with low incomes, those with physical deficiency and some school age children, and v) it has limited national coverage.

Other programmes created to support the most needy with food or emergency security are either insufficient to cover present needs or in many cases simply deactivated. This all reveals the state's impotence in answering the crisis of social vulnerability, which has placed the majority of the population in a situation of permanent exclusion from the labour market. The result is its social exclusion, which tends to consolidate and reproduce itself in subsequent generations, with the circle of poverty thus difficult to break.

A short evaluation of the role the unions have been able to develop in negotiations with the government for the improvement of wages (including the minimum wage – effectively sidelined along with the forms of social welfare outlined above), also elucidates the way in which multilateral agencies are dominant, whether in models of social welfare constituted by networks of 'minimum social protection'(B. S. Santos, 2001: 183), or in refusing to accept union arguments

The social programmes promoted by the World Bank and IMF thus show how vulnerable Mozambique is to their politics, its position in the world system rendering it incapable of managing or avoiding the multiplicity of processes whose decisions are made outside its frontiers.

3- SOLIDAIRTY NETWORKS AND SOCIAL POLICIES: WHAT ROLE IN SOCIAL WELFARE?

If we agree that the capitalist world system, through its market dominance, permeates and even fragments the political, cultural and social areas, it is also clear that its violence produces alternatives which are not purely economic, but which have social dimensions (Giddens, 1998; Santos, 1998; Apadurai 1999). Thus, at the same time as universal processes of exclusion are growing, forms of resistance to these are also emerging; these include various popular initiatives, alternatives and movements. Mozambique is no exception to this trend.

Faced with structural conditions and lack of economic opportunity which result in poverty, deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability, members of the community search for ways of getting round social exclusion. Economic, social and political conditions of the last 2 decades in Mozambique created a propitious context for the revival or creation of solidarity networks, various forms of association and co-operatives, in the search for alternative forms of social direction, so as to ensure the working classes access to basic goods and services (Santos & Rodriguez, 2002 ; Cruz e Silva, 2002).

In the process of establishing alternative strategies, the study identified: i) a group of primary solidarity networks (kinship, co-residence, shared boarding, neighbourhood and religion) to which members have recourse for material and non-material help in crisis situations: ii) informal mutual help groups and societies (funeral societies, savings and mutual aid and women's groups), and iii) formal associations for recreation and aid which serve as support groups when necessary. Informal systems of social control, normally including mechanisms for the resolution of disputes, operate within the various networks mentioned and function as instances of primary and secondary recourse, depending on the particular case (Cruz e Silva, 2000).

The solidarity networks existing in informal markets, based on family and ethnic ties, generally function to find employment, start a new business or finance a new enterprise. These networks are used, for example, to find a good place to sell in a market (there is much competition), obtain the capital initially necessary to start a business, carry out works or improve a market stall's equipment. Religious and work contacts are usually activated in cases of funerals and illness.

Death is always a moment surrounded by ritual and symbology, which stimulates even among the poorest systems of support for the family of the bereaved and mixing of various types of solidarity in which relations established on the basis of kinship, ethnicity, neighbourhood and religion join with those of the workplace. In the residential suburbs on the periphery of the city, the existence of burial societies based on various links was noted. It was possible to see that the solidarity generated by the death of a neighbour, a person from home, or a work mate often resulted in the formation of the nucleus for an association, formal or informal (Cruz e Silva, 2000).

In the areas which were the subject of our study it was evident that primary solidarity networks (Nunes, 1995) played not only an important role in the resolution of immediate problems, such as the hunt for a job or housing, and in the longer term such as strategies for economic survival; they also were vital in establishing other kinds of support beyond the financial and moral, pertaining to other levels of social exclusion in that they help reconstitute the esteem, dignity and respect held for the self and others.

Networks thus constitute a social capital which can be defined in function of the relations of reciprocity existing in society, based on social links where factors such as sex, age, religion and social position define hierarchies and relations of power, and where existing norms and confidence facilitate co-operation and co-ordination for mutual benefit.

Exclusion generates processes of regrouping and reciprocal recognition and the emergence of alternatives and new identities. Around these identities – in the cases we studied – were constructed the larger part of social solidarities which were interlinked with family and other social ties, and which widened their role so as to play a vital part in citizens' survival.

In a situation in which it is ever more difficult to break the cycle of poverty reproduced through the generations, the social solidarity which functions through mechanisms of mutual aid is becoming increasingly weaker in effect and is losing its capacity to operate as an alternative to welfare, becoming restricted in its role and viability.

I am bound to agree with Graça Carapinheiro (2001: 221) in that 'it is possible to state that the model of development oriented to the market colonised but has still not destroyed primary solidarities (…) though we cannot thus say that forms of contra-hegemonic globalisation are visible', since the constraints which surround them impede their capacity to find adequate solutions to their problems.

4- CONCLUSION

In the period immediately after national independence, the Mozambican government reoriented its public social policies in an attempt to reduce the inequalities created by the colonial system and widen the possibility of access to opportunities to all its citizens, with the broadening of social rights and their availability to the most basic level. An impressive volume of social expenditure was devoted to health and education, with the nationalisation of the infrastructure and systems of basic social services and massification of access. Civil war and errors committed in development strategies and policies, coupled with external factors as well as neo-liberal policies led to the weakening of the state's capacity to ensure social welfare, and to the marked erosion of the citizen's access to social benefits. The pressure of multilateral agencies resulted finally in imposing a pattern of social policies reduced to the minimal networks of social support, which have shown themselves not only insufficient but also ineffective.

The reduction in the weight of social policies in the state budget and the resulting loss of public social welfare has generated forms of compensation for part of these services through systems of mutual aid based on primary solidarity, in the context of 'societal welfare' (Santos, 1995). Thus the networks of solidarity based on kinship, religion, ethnicity, and workplace affinities, together with NGOs, attempt to develop an alternative form of social involvement, functioning to some extent as support nets.

Despite the existence of some successful initiatives in the area of social management, their capacity to act as a viable alternative in the absence of public social provision is in most cases conditioned by the increasing level of poverty of their members and the consequent weakening of the networks' capacity to respond to the problems encountered. We can therefore conclude that because they are constrained by the reduced viability of solidarity mechanisms in a context of high levels of poverty, unemployment and exclusion, the forms of provision generated by 'societal welfare' (B.Sousa Santos, 1995) to compensate for the absence of social welfare, far from functioning as a real alternative, only come to reduce the worsening of the levels of exclusion by ensuring strategies and forms of survival.

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