The notion and practice of giving is central in all cultures. In much of Africa, giving has carried elements of reciprocity and solidarity, and hence is often referred to as ‘gifting’. Micaia’s work in the ‘Giving for Change’ project (2021-2025) revealed a great diversity of expressions of giving and gifting in communities. Much of this is hidden, quiet, and individual, but it is also part of the lifeblood of the community. Similarly, across Mozambique, there is extensive charity, the often instinctive, reactive giving to people in need or through the church. This is part of the generosity of people, even those who have so little to meet their own needs. In a way, ‘charity’ is at odds with the traditions of ‘gifting’ that are tied up with the spirit of ‘Ubunto’, the African philosophy that enshrines interconnectedness, compassion, and community.

Micaia is keen to explore these traditions and build on them, encouraging and facilitating the institutionalisation of giving and gifting within communities that can then utilise those resources to meet local needs. This is the heart of community philanthropy. At the other end of the spectrum, institutional philanthropy, usually associated with wealth, has the potential to address structural and causal issues in society. However, this ‘strategic’ philanthropy has been remarkably ineffective, given the vast resources expended, in addressing the most pressing social and environmental challenges of our time.

As philanthropic institutions have grown on the back of vast wealth creation around the world, philanthropy has become distant, privileging bureaucratic top-down systems of control and upward accountability, and undermining the critical human relationships inherent in gifting. At worst, philanthropy can be accused of helping maintain the status quo of injustice rather than challenge it. As wealth grows in Mozambique, philanthropy too will and should grow. We can build a philanthropic culture and practice that draws from the spirit of ‘gifting’ and Ubunto and is inspired by the new movement of trust-based philanthropy. Micaia Foundation, through its newly launched Philanthropy Mozambique Centre, will seek to foster this form of transformative philanthropy.

Ask any elder in any village in central Mozambique if climate change is real and you will get the same answer: of course! In 2008, when Micaia’s founders first began the Micaia journey, farmers would talk happily of planting on or around a certain date in late October, so confident were they of the first rains. Of course, there were always shocks to the system, but they were the exception to a rule that allowed subsistence farming (as tough as it was) to sustain people. Today, climate volatility is the new normal. Rains start early and then stop for months, only to come again with such ferocity that any surviving crops are destroyed. Or no rains come at all. Or a cyclone gathers and sweeps across the region, as Idai did in 2019.

The impact of climate change in Mozambique has been exacerbated by widespread and extensive deforestation and degradation. From 2001 to 2025, Mozambique lost 4.8 million hectares of tree cover, equivalent to 17% of the 2000 tree cover, with agriculture the main driver. https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/MOZ/.

Growing populations in rural areas, faced with no new job opportunities in the nearby towns, and squeezed by spreading plantation investments, expanded into forest areas, clearing and burning with little thought to the loss of biodiversity or the risks of exacerbating climate change impact. At the same time, poorly controlled logging of high value hardwoods opened up routes into the forests, making it easier for people to follow.

Micaia has always taken a people first approach, but we believe passionately that wellbeing for all of us requires that we live in harmony with the planet and seek to sustain and enhance its resources, not simply deplete them. In all of our landscapes, we work with community leaders to try and get the message across that our actions today will determine the future wellbeing of our children. We support not only learning about climate, but the efforts of communities to give back – through planting trees, nurturing seedlings, creating land use plans, establishing conservation areas, and creating sand dams that provide water for irrigation in dry areas.