Implicações políticas da cooperação internacional para o desenvolvimento no campo da educação superior em Moçambique: análise do papel do Banco Mundial (1993-2018)

Abstract

During the last two decades in Mozambique, the main reforms of Higher Education (HE) have been financed by the World Bank (WB), whose agenda is profoundly neoliberal. This fact shows a great influence of the WB on Mozambique’s HE Political Project. It illustrates that the future of public universities and their networks can be glimpsed, thus reflecting a perspective resulting from the measures of the structural adjustment, inspired by the Washington Consensus. Therefore, we argue that there is a need to build a profile of Mozambican HE in line with the challenges of national development and a better articulation of the various actors involved in its implementation. Based on the arenas theory, taking as a timeframe the years between 1993 and 2018, we seek to critically analyse the political implications of international cooperation in the area of HE and answer the following main question: How, in Mozambique, do the WB Agenda and the Mozambican State coexist or conflict? To this end, our analysis are centred in the main areas of cooperation of the WB and its framework in the Higher Education Strategic Plan in order to assess its relevance within the system. To make the analysis more consistent, we conducted a survey in 21 HEI to assess their level of satisfaction with the Bank's areas of cooperation. The data collected in the field shows that throughout the historical, political, economic and social trajectory, at no time Mozambique was free of external interference (although with different scales) in its administration, in contrast to the principle of self-determination of peoples, which inspired the generations of the freedom fighters of September 25, 1964. Our main conclusion indicates that the different arenas of the political process receive directly or indirectly financing and technical support from the Bank. In the case of arenas established at the sector level, all of them work practically on the basis of the Bank's funds, not only for means-results, but also for ends-results. Furthermore, the fact that the Bank has a coordination unit of its projects in the related Government Institutions, through which the activities to be financed are filtered, challenges the units receiving cooperation, for a greater ability to exploit the arenas of the political process, because these are rooms for dispute despite the Bank omnipresence, its domination is not given. It is possible to identify equilibrium points and disputes, through a clear definition of the political-strategic vision of the sector and the definition of cooperation as a resource, thus not removing the primary responsibility of the Government in defining the sector priorities and avoiding the decision-making responsibility.