Second MOZMOD retreat

In collaboration with the national MOZMOD team, International Labour Organization (ILO) Mozambique, Ministry of Economic and Finance of Mozambique (MEF) and the Southern Africa for Social Policy Research Insights (SASPRI), UNU-WIDER organizes a 5-day MOZMOD retreat, a capacity development initiative allowing participants to get acquainted with the MOZMOD tax-benefit model and to produce policy briefs based on the model. The briefs will serve to answer the questions that are most relevant for the work of the participants.

The main goal of the retreat is to empower participants to use MOZMOD to answer their own policy questions using the model, aware of the capabilities and limitations of MOZMOD; and provide a forum for MOZMOD users to exchange and learn. A key feature is that the National Team is taking the lead in organizing and delivering the retreat to ensure maximum ownership.

At the same time, the retreat shall serve as a forum to build a community of MOZMOD users in Mozambique, creating ownership of the model beyond the MEF, and in the long-term, establishing MOZMOD versed counterparts in stakeholder institutions such as other Ministries that administer policies modelled in MOZMOD.

In addition to MEF, participants include government officials in stakeholder institutions such as the National Institute of Social Security (INPS), Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Action (MGCAS), National Institute for Social Action (INAS), National Institute of Statistics (INE), and Ministry of Labor. The chosen participants are those who have already previously taken a MOZMOD training, preferably the most recent training.

About MOZMOD

Tax-benefit microsimulation models — which combine representative household-level data on incomes and expenditures and detailed coding of tax and benefit legislation — have proven to be an extremely useful tool for policy makers and researchers. The models apply user-defined tax and benefit policy rules to microdata on individuals and households and calculate the effects of these rules on household income. The effects of different policy scenarios on poverty, inequality, and government revenues can be analysed and compared.

Since its initial inception in 2015, UNU-WIDER has been developing and maintaining with the Ministry of Economic and Finance (MEF) of Mozambique a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Mozambique (MOZMOD), supported by the Southern Africa for Social Policy Research Insights (SASPRI) Institute. International Labor Organization (ILO) Mozambique serves as a local partner in delivering capacity-building activities. So far four training events and one retreat event have been organized.

UNU-WIDER's Inclusive Growth in Mozambique team collaborates with the SOUTHMOD team and supports organizing the capacity development activities.

SOUTHMOD project is part of UNU-WIDER's research and capacity development programme on domestic revenue mobilization (DRM), funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (Norad).