Urban development and resilience enhancement – Mozambique

The city of Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado province, is one of the major destinations for Mozambique’s internally displaced people. In this fragile context that WFP and AVSI Foundation developed a project entitled “Improving resilience through Assets Creation activities and Home-grown school feeding of displaced and host communities in Cabo Delgado” with the aim to improve urban, social and economy development of communities and internally displaced persons while intervening on other emergency aspects such as hydrogeological safety and urban development

The primary objective is the creation of a drainage and rainwater collection system inspired by the principles of naturalistic engineering and integrated with the increase in the usability of public spaces, the offer of services and the renaturation of the area .

The first phase involved three drainage canals with a total extension of over 1.5 km and an urban area of ​​approximately 16 hectares to which a second phase was added which involved a further canal of approximately 1 km and another 5 hectares of urban areas.

The envisaged solutions are based on the principles of naturalistic engineering, favoring local materials, natural elements and simple technologies for the creation of the network of drainage channels and the consolidation of small defense embankments or slopes. Particular attention was also paid to the development of solutions to encourage infiltration and thus reduce the volume of water especially during extreme events such as rain gardens, drainage trenches or infiltration basins that are vegetated or usable as public spaces