No abstract

Mozambique is an agricultural country. However, it faces numerous challenges to feed the population and reduce poverty. Recently, the situation is being worsened by high environmental, social vulnerability and extreme events influenced by climate disruption in the form of cyclones, droughts, and floods. Sustainable use of resources has become an issue in each food supply chain segment. People often suffer from food shortages: some caused by natural disasters, others by excessive post-harvest losses due poor storage facilities. Therefore, reducing post-harvest losses through preservation technologies is an important step toward reaching ending hunger (SDG 2) and ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns (SDG 12). Thus, practical ways of cheaply and sanitarily preserving foods are needed. The post-harvest losses of agricultural products can be reduced drastically by using renewable energy sources like solar energy. This article presents a review and possibilities of using solar drying, focusing on the technical needs of small farmers in Mozambique. In this study, it was concluded that solar drying is one of the most efficient and cost-effective, renewable, and sustainable technologies to conserve agricultural products. However, solar dryers, being used in Mozambique, are only useful in the presence of solar radiation and useless at night or during cloudy days. To enable off-sun drying, heat storage must be integrated. This way, it can trigger the hopes for alleviation of poverty, opportunity for decent work, economic growth and reduce inequality.

The energy sector in Mozambique faces huge challenges that include low generation capacity and efficiency, affordability, unstable and unreliable energy supplies, low access rates, amongst others. The situation is being worsened by high environmental, social vulnerability and extreme events influenced by climate catastrophes. With the demand of energy consistently on the rise, there is critical need to address policy, investment, market and technical barriers to energy sector development. Mozambican government has made tremendous effort in developing electricity sector regulatory frameworks. However, progress has been uneven across the country. Thus, the aim of the study was to identify potential opportunities to promote the introduction of new distributed generation policies and technologies from renewable sources in Mozambique by analyzing technological and regulatory components of the energy sector in Argentina, Italy and Mexico. Methodologically, the study uses a comprehensive literature review, several national policy frameworks and statistical data from various official sources, with public policy and sectoral performance, as well as organizational and regulatory changes in consideration. Understanding national electricity market regulations and strategies, it will enable to gain a sense of perspective of the major determinants of the sector performance, and both the potential for and constraints on regulatory reform. It was observed that for achieving efficiency in energy provision, fair pricing, equality of access and environmental sustainability, it is important to strengthen the independence of the regulator.

A água é vital para a sobrevivência humana, saúde e dignidade.  No entanto, os recursos de água doce estão sob pressão crescente devido ao aumento do crescimento populacional e aumento de atividades económicas. Os sistemas de abastecimento de água, por sua complexidade e especificidade, introduzem um determinado grau de perda da produção. Por isso, em Moçambique, verifica-se uma grande preocupação da companhia de distribuição de água e dos investigadores na busca de soluções para implementação de processos operacionais que minimizem as perdas de água. Assim, a pesquisa teve como objetivo avaliar as perdas de água na rede de abastecimento no Município de Chimoio, Bairro 25 de Junho. O estudo baseou-se na determinação do balanço hídrico, modelação hidráulica e sua calibração, utilizando o Software Epanet 2.0. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o índice de perdas de água na rede de abastecimento foi de 25% e as perdas influenciaram de uma forma significativa nas variáveis pressão e caudal.