EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
and the expansion of large-scale, market-
The report calls for greater articulation
oriented agriculture. However, as the
between social movements – whether
destruction of the cashew industry
based in the home, the countryside, the
illustrates, these conditions have had
street corner, or the factory floor – in
harmful effects. Recently, the World Bank
order to build power against the tide of
shifted its support towards smallholder
expropriation, exploitation and exclusion
and peasant farmers, through the adoption
under late neoliberalism. It also calls for the
of the Natural Resources Landscape
revival of the global justice movement, so
Management Project or Sustenta, hinged
as to be able to hold international financial
on the privatization and collateralization of
institutions accountable.
land.
As the report concludes, the Covid-19
pandemic created an opportunity for the
World Bank to fast-track financialization
through loans and grants. This has led
to the attempted expropriation of the
Mozambican state and its people through
the outsourcing of state functions and
privatization of state assets. Nevertheless,
moments of crisis create windows
of opportunity to reorient policy and
action towards the construction of a
developmental state committed to a
people-centred development model, and
which prioritizes human development over
market interests.
8
Fast-tracking Financialization - International Financial Institutions’ Responses
to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Mozambique