Young Cabo Delgado refugees offered hope in conflict-hit Mozambican province

• About 250 displaced young people have graduated in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, after acquiring technical skills.
• The UNHCR says the youths will play a key role in the reconstruction plan in the province.
• The Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime says trust should be nurtured between government and local populations to achieve lasting peace.

Against significant odds, about 250 youths from refugee communities in the oil- and gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, have graduated in various technical jobs.

The region has been the scene of an Islamic insurgency since 2017.

The graduates received certificates in metalwork, brickmaking and bricklaying, plumbing, carpentry, air-conditioning maintenance, painting, and electrical installation. They had attended the Alberto Cassimo Institute for Professional Training and Labour Studies Institute (IFPELAC) in Pemba, the provincial capital of Cabo Delgado.

In a statement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the qualifications will help "youth find a job market suited to their skills".

The courses are part of the UNHCR's efforts towards restoration, as normalcy gradually returns to the conflict-torn province that has seen at least 3 000 deaths and close to a million displaced residents since October 2017.

Margarida Loureiro, UNHCR boss in Pemba, said the first group of graduates will be pioneers in the reconstruction agenda.

She said:

In January, at the SADC Extraordinary Summit in Lilongwe, Malawi, the regional bloc's chairperson, President Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, urged member states and international partners to not only support the SADC mission, but also the Cabo Delgado reconstruction plan.

Under the three-year reconstruction plan, worth roughly R1.6 billion, Mozambique will seek to rebuild Cabo Delgado into an economic powerhouse.

In a report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, the organisation advised Mozambique to address societal structural problems faced in Cabo Delgado to end the conflict. The report is titled "Insurgency, Illicit Markets, and Corruption: The Cabo Delgado conflict and its regional implications".

According to the report, the government should "improve trust between state and local populations, for example by bringing local civil society and community leaders into governance roles. Invest in the region to address economic inequality, in a way that is transparent and locally based".

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The International Peace Institute, an organisation that provides analysis on peace and security issues, said the reconstruction of Cabo Delgado should follow a sound disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration plan.

It said the plan should also cater for former insurgents coming out of the bush to be integrated into communities. The organisation added that they must be included in the reconstruction agenda to avoid some of the reasons that led to them taking up arms, such as unemployment, poverty and exclusion.