Abstract:
This paper presents an overview of the characteristics and roles of key role-players involved
in agricultural development in Mozambique. As in many other countries worldwide,
extension service provision is characterised by the multiple service providers responding to
the needs and demands of farmers. This is unlike in the recent past when agricultural services
were mainly delivered by the public sector.
The 25 years of public extension have been characterised by different degrees of progress.
Supporting extension policy was developed and amended as required during this period,
which impacted positively on farmer coverage (number of districts operating) as well as the
number of farmers served per extensionist. The expansion of public extension services
created new challenges for the delivering of extension services. Within the pluralistic
extension system of Mozambique, NGO’s and private commodity extension organisations
play an important role in supporting smallholder farmers.
To be able to learn from the different experiences in offering extension by the various service
providers is only possible through effective communication and sharing of experiences
between public, NGO’s and private extension service providers. Despite some local based
initiatives seeking to enhance collaboration between public and NGOs extension, no official
extension platform (multi stakeholder) at national level exists which can take care of the
coordination and management of the pluralistic extension system.
