The Culture of Improvisation in Mozambique: How theʺRESORT TO˝It is hindering real development

Luis Munguambe Junior"

You know what sets us apart, or rather, what we're always told sets us apart. They call it resourcefulness: the ability to overcome difficulties with quick, creative, improvised solutions. We grew up praising this way of life: "You guys really know how to get by!" or "Here, even without everything, we manage!". But today we need to ask: to what extent has this culture of constant survival ceased to be a virtue and become an obstacle to the real development of the country?

The resourcefulness emerges when the system fails, when the State cannot provide a timely response to basic needs. And, yes, let's acknowledge it: many times this ability to improvise has allowed us to escape the worst. You yourselves have experienced this: when the N1 highway was devastated by water or when a public service fails to fulfill its role, you improvise. And that, of course, has value. But therein lies the risk: when the ability to improvise becomes the main instrument of governance, what should be a contingency becomes the rule.

Look around you. Many of the problems we face are not merely the consequence of external shocks or bad weather; they are the result of decades of decisions made without a long-term vision, reactive responses instead of proactive ones. Infrastructure built "in haste," solutions improvised under the heat of political pressure, responses that only emerge after the disaster and not before. All of this creates a dangerous pattern: managing the crisis instead of preventing it.

For example, when large infrastructure projects are planned, how often do we see plans that seem improvised? Roads without maintenance, bridges that are only temporary, insufficient drainage systems that flood whenever it rains heavily, even when we know that this is a recurring reality, year after year. We know that the intense rains and floods in 2026 affected thousands of homes, destroyed houses and displaced entire families, an event that authorities describe as one of the worst in recent years, comparable to previous extreme disasters. And yet, we remain at the mercy of ad hoc responses, instead of preventing recurring effects.

The problem of makeshift solutions lies primarily in how the culture of improvisation has been absorbed by the institutions that should be planning, anticipating, and structuring the country's future. When an economic or social crisis arises—and they frequently do—the response we almost always get is a package of short-term measures, press conferences with promises, and then more improvisation. It seems we prefer to patch up an old problem rather than build a lasting solution. And that's where something deeper holds us back: when improvisation is systematic, it normalizes the lack of planning. We patch things up so often that the idea of ​​prevention starts to sound strange. It's like living in a house with a leaky roof and only repairing it when it rains, instead of reinforcing the roof before the rainy season. And so, year after year, we continue to improvise. The same thing happens in provinces affected by floods: the response is always "after the fact."

This culture of immediate solutions without deep reflection has structural effects. In the education system, for example, there is improvisation with curricula that are not aligned with the real needs of the market and with higher education that prepares for diplomas and not for the skills that the country needs. In the agricultural sector, despite more than 70% of the population depending on agriculture, many interventions are still reactive, instead of being supported by strategies that value rural work with innovation, technology and access to markets. And what happens when there is too much improvisation? Development simply doesn't happen. We seek quick results, solutions that "save the day," but we don't build the capacity for the responses to be effective, sustainable and replicable. The so-called makeshift solution ends up keeping us in the same place, surviving, but far from prospering. This is not about denying the creativity or resilience that the Mozambican people have demonstrated. It is about recognizing that creativity without structure is merely palliative. And development requires structure, discipline, planning and vision. We need to understand that makeshift solutions cannot continue to be the governance model that replaces well-defined public policies. The future must be based on rigorous planning, clear policy, and strengthened institutional capacity, not on continuous improvisation.

Development is not something that is improvised from crisis to crisis. Development is what is built with patience, with data, with study. It is what is done before the floods, not always after them. It is what is planned even when there is no press at the door. It is what is executed with professionalism and responsibility, not with shortcuts.

Mozambique has potential. It has talented people, enormous natural resources, and a creative youth. What we often lack is the ability to transform this creativity into a sustainable development model, far removed from the cyclical repetition of improvisation.

It's time to recognize that improvisation helped us survive, but it cannot be the foundation upon which we build our future. If we continue to improvise instead of planning, to freeze in the face of foreseeable problems, and to respond with temporary fixes, then our development will always remain far from our true potential.

We can do more. But we will only realize this when we stop thinking that improvisation is our greatest advantage and start working to ensure that structure, planning, and collective vision become our true national identity.

2025/12/3