Integrating Climate Risk Into Public Investment Management In Mozambique: A Framework For Climate-Resilient Project Appraisal

Mozambique’s high exposure to floods, cyclones, droughts, extreme heat, and other climate-related hazards presents significant risks to public infrastructure, service delivery, and fiscal sustainability. Although climate considerations are formally embedded within the country’s Public Investment Management (PIM) framework, their practical application remains largely qualitative, inconsistent across sectors, and insufficiently integrated into technical and economic appraisal. This paper assesses the current integration of climate risk within Mozambique’s PIM system and develops a refined Climate Risk Screening and Assessment Framework for systematically incorporating climate resilience into public investment decision-making. The proposed framework introduces standardized hazard screening, climate risk classification, project-specific impact assessment, climate-proofing alternatives, and quantitative economic appraisal across the Project Profile, Prefeasibility Study, Feasibility Study, and final appraisal stages. It further integrates expected annual damages, avoided losses, cost-benefit analysis, climate scenario testing, and structured appraisal criteria to support the selection of economically justified adaptation measures. An illustrative application to a rural access road in Sofala Province demonstrates how climate risk information can materially influence project design and the selection of appropriate resilience measures. The framework provides a practical basis for embedding climate-responsive appraisal within e-SNIP/e-MIP, strengthening institutional oversight, improving the resilience of public investments, and supporting more efficient allocation of scarce public resources.