ABSTRACT
Mozambique was to become a testing ground for massive operational non-governmental organisations (NGO) relief programmes backed by significant Northern government and multilateral aid. The enormous increase in aid in the mid-1980s often empowered government at district level by providing inputs for reconstruction and daily operations far beyond what was available to a state whose revenue base had been destroyed. The main objective was to encourage regional cooperation between NGOs working with Mozambican refugees in countries of asylum and NGOs working in Mozambique. Many factors that led to economic and social decline in Mozambique can be traced back to the Portuguese colonial experience that left the country with a distorted and weakened economy with few indigenous skills and industries. In November 1993, LINK established, with a LINK-paid secretary and a 3-member steering committee, a provincial coordination group in Tete.
