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IRD has been working in Mozambique since 2004 on water, sanitation, and hygiene (HIV/AIDS, and women’s entrepreneuprograms. In addition to a national office in Maputo, IRD has three provincial offices Inhambane, Sofala, and Zambezia, with 90 people on staff.

Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene
IRD in Mozambique implements programs that range from emergency water supply to water harvesting infrastructure developmental projects, with funding from such partners as USAID, UNICEF, Americares, the United MethodisChurch, and the Swiss Federal Institute forEnvironmental Science and Technology. IRD has rehabilitated/installed more than 100 water sources to date while also training water committees and mobilizing communities for improved hygiene. IRD is at the forefront of water and hygiene at schools in Mozambique, introducing the solar water disinfection (SODIS) method and installing 27 rooftop water harvesting systems.

In the area of sanitation, IRD has installed 4,500 latrines in Zambezia province, training local masons to produce slabs and activists that encourage communities to use latrines. IRD is promoting Certeza, a simple chlorine solution for household water treatment, through its Women First entrepreneurial network and is currently testing the ceramic filter SIPHON with 100 households in Morrumbala district. IRD was the “WASH cluster” responsible partner for Zambezia province in the 2007 and 2008 floods and is an active member of the Water and Sanitation Group, which coordinates WASH activities in Mozambique.

HIV/AIDS
IRD helps community-based organizations learn to implement HIV prevention, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) care, and home-based care (HBC) activities. IRD HIV/AIDS programs are supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the National AIDS Council, and USAID/President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief program through sub-grants to AED and World Vision. Through interactive trainings and close follow up, IRD builds the capacity of community groups in Zambezia province and associations in Inhambane province to implement activities and establish systems for program monitoring and financial accountability to donors. IRD has developed toolkits and designed a mentoring program specifically for assessing, planning, and implementing capacity building programs for small associations working in the technical areas of home-based care, HIV prevention, and OVC care and support. IRD is the umbrella partner of the World Food Program for two provinces (Sofala and Inhambane), where it provides food assistance to 15,300 OVC and 24,250 HBC patients through 35 local partner associations.

Women’s Entrepreneurship
IRD designed and implements the Women First program, which combines health and HIV/AIDS activities with entrepreneurial training and the creation of sustainable business for rural women. IRD provides women’s groups with intensive training on health and HIV/AIDS, and in partnership with private sector companies creates a supply chain for basic consumption items to be sold by female entrepreneurs. In this way the program increases knowledge of healthy behaviors in the community, increases economic capacity of women to put healthy behaviors in practice, and increases volume of sales for its private sector partner. IRD implemented the Women First program in Inhambane and Zambezia provinces with funding from CIDA and USAID through a sub-grant to World Vision. To date, Women First has established more than 200 entrepreneurs in Zambezia province, and monthly sales have exceeded US$18,000. In a province where the latest behavioral study revealed that only 34.9 percent of women knew at least one method of HIV prevention, 97.5 percent of those in the Women First program specifically cited condom use as a prevention method. Half of the women used their new disposable income from the program to buy food, while 54 percent bought household items and 44 percent bought school supplies for their children.


Programs
- Capable Health Partners Project
- Community Mobilization/Training in Sanitation
- Drought Relief and Emergency Food Aid
- Harvest: An Emergency Response to the Drought Affected Massinga District
- Emergency Flood Response, 2007 and 2008
- National Council for HIV/AIDS Positive Organizational Development Program
- Women First HIV/AIDS
- Community-Based Solar Disinfection System
- Home-Based Care (ESOCUIDA) Program
- Reducing Risks from Natural Disasters
- SCIP Program in Southern Mozambique


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Contact
Mark Heffernan
Country Director

Maputo Office:
Avenue Base N’Tchinga 567
Bairro Coop
Maputo
Mozambique
Phone: 011-258-21-415953
E-mail: mheffernan@ird-dc.org