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The mainstay of this report, however, is not so much an examination of the extractive industries themselves as an examination of the Mozambican government’s and society’s ability to handle the impacts of these industries and where capacity growth is most urgently needed. In this regard, this investigation looks at three principal areas. The first area is about maximizing the receipts that reach legitimate government coffers. This includes the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which ensures that company and governmentpayments match. It is a donor-supported activity, and one that can be even more effective by going beyond the initiative’s most basic outlines. Civil society too has a role in this, as a kind of watchdog for the industry, the government, and by linking to groups not directly connected to either of the previous two. Mozambican civil society is weak, and here too there is the potential for donors to contribute to improving Mozambique’s chances to have a beneficial experience from new extractive industries. Potential conflicts from investments in the sector, particularly when these industries have powerful negative impacts on local communities, are also important, need to be well understood, and are another potential destination for donor involvement.
