Mark McHenry

The project “Using Natural Resource Wealth to Improve Access to Water and Sanitation in Mozambique” was funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through its 2012 Australian Development Research Awards Scheme programme. The project ran from May 2013 to October 2015 and sought to build the case for long-term investment in the water and sanitation sector in Mozambique. In particular, it considered the opportunities afforded by mining activity and associated revenue to address significant gaps in water supply and sanitation (WSS).

There is a resurgence of interest about Africa’s 1 billion people as an emerging market, and the continent's agroecological land, water, labour, energy, and mineral resources. African countries are dynamic growing markets. For example, mobile phone ownership has grown from practically zero to around 50% in only a decade on a purely commercial basis. These improvements in connectivity in Africa are reaching remote towns and rural areas and are transforming lives, and there are similar opportunities for transformation of agriculture as a driver of economic development.

This project partnership was based on a collaborative ‘model farm’ concept developed in collaboration between the report authors, the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor (BAGC) Catalytic Fund Manager in Mozambiquea, and locally engaged extractive industries as long-term and committed ‘patient procurement partners’ (PPP). This will create a fundamentally different kind of ‘PPP’ (private-public partnership), where there is a sustained corporate social responsibility element for the life of a mining development that facilitates mutually beneficial agricultural production to meet procurement standards, and to create confidence in the supply chain to enable local production to also participate in other market opportunities. The fundamental project aim is to support/facilitate existing subsistence farmers to become able to commercially sell surplus quality products into the growing mining supply chain. This will enable a relatively secure market to indirectly incentivise and support the longer-term development of an emerging local commercial farming industry. The lessons learned are practical and easy to understand for farmers, and also parallel publication and multi-media components of how corporate and policy willingness to effectively develop and expand the ‘patient procurement partner’ PPP model. The projects focus on developing an on-ground capacity through appropriate technology demonstration and extension of selected local agricultural products that are in demand from the local mining operation procurer. We have concentrated on high value, perishable products that would under normal supply chain analysis be cost-effective to produce. The project has focussed on the transformative nature of additional clean energy inputs in support of mechanisation and modernisation of production and postharvest handling, with particular attention being given to photovoltaics (PV) and smallscale oil-based biofuel production components within the context of local capacity in the Beira Corridor.

African stakeholders in discussion with ACIAR have emphasised the key role of energy availability on farms for the intensification of food crop production on small holdings, especially in an era of high and increasing oil prices. Energy is often a binding constraint which limits the pumping of water, utilisation of small tractors and the local processing of food, as well as household activities such as clean cooking and household lighting. Recent advances in renewable energy technologies have opened up new possibilities for the economic provision of energy to smallholder households in remote locations, based on better utilisation of biomass and other renewable energy resources. The research team has assessed the potential for appropriate modern renewable energy technologies to improve primary productivity to accelerate food supply security. The projects include an analysis suitable for four primary production systems: • inland artisanal fishery systems; • humid forest root crop-based systems; • sub-humid savannah maize-based systems, and; • arid/semi-arid agro-pastoral systems.

This report assesses the technical performance by simulation of: The AC electricity generated from a 96.2% efficient SG 3KTL-31, 3.30 kWp inverter converting DC electricity generated by a 3.0 kWp photovoltaic (PV) array comprised of 12 x 250 Wp YL250P-29b polycrystalline modules (See Fig. 1 for module qualifications and certifications). There were 169 simulations for both Perth and Mandurah undertaken at specified array orientations. The total 338 system simulations generated data that indicated the technical performance that unobstructed PV-inverter systems would generate in one year (kWh/year) at each array orientation.

The first Parliamentary ‘Inquiry into Australia’s relationship with the countries of Africa’ was released in June 2011 by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. The inquiry noted that to distinguish Australia from other ‘Western nations’, a broad strategy comprising aid, development, security, trade, and investment should be implemented through the considerable natural resource investment and experience in corporate social responsibility of Australian companies [1]. This discussion paper outlines areas of significant cross-sector collaborative potential between Australian resource companies and agricultural, environmental, and social elements unique to sub-Saharan Africa.