Mozambique is a
large country in Southern Africa with an area of 784,754 square kilometres and an estimated population of over 18 million people,
of whom more than half are under age 20. Thirteen percent of the total population live in
urban areas. Mozambique is considered to be one of the
poorest countries in the world with over 60% of the people living below the poverty line.
After its independence from Portugal in 1975, the country engaged in a long and
devastating civil war for nearly three decades. The year 1992 saw the signing of a peace
accord between rival parties, and in 1994 free elections generating over 80% voter turnout
were held. Since then, with an infrastructure in total ruins, Mozambique has been faced
with the challenge to rebuild its society and economy.
Mozambique's
telephone network includes over 85,700 connected lines, and the telephone density is
0.44 line per hundred population. There is a high disparity in telecommunications access
between the urban and the rural areas, with 64% of all lines concentrated in the capital
city, Maputo, and the second and third largest cities in the country having 11% and 7% of
all lines, respectively. As part of the
larger economic reform underway in the country, the telecommunications sector has been
restructured to increase efficiency and profitability.
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