Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique? By Joseph Hanlon and Teresa Smart

In this book Hanlon and Smart offer a critical assessment of Mozambique’s development path in the 16 years following the country’s civil war (1976–1992). By taking a material means of transportation often cited as proxy for observable development (the bicycle), the authors’ primary objective is to judge governmental and international community efforts in relation to poverty reduction strategies and policies against results and public perceptions found on the ground. They conclude that most Mozambicans evaluate development less from a human capital (health, education, inter alia) and physical infrastructure (roads, electricity, inter alia) perspective (as often depicted by official governmental, donor, and IFI reports), than from an income and livelihood or employment perspective. In this perception bicycles prove misleading as proxy for development, as they (and other assets) constitute necessary, though insufficient conditions in securing livelihoods. Their assessment is based on self-conducted field research and interviews held with 250 people, as well as selected national representative sample survey results (that sought to identify perceptions of Mozambique’s most pressing problems).

Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Livelihood · Political science · Poverty · Proxy (statistics) · International Development and Aid