Pascoal Mocumbi

Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi (born April 10, 1941) was the Prime Minister of Mozambique from 1994 until 2004. His traditional name was Mahykete. He is the son of Manuel Mocumbi Malume, deceased, and Leta Alson Cuhle.

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He began his studies at the Missão de Mocumbi, Inharrime district, Inhambane province, where he completed primary school, in 1952. He attended secondary school at the Liceu Salazar, in Maputo, between 1953 and 1960. From the end of the 1950s, Mocumbi was a board member of the Núcleo de Estudantes Secundários Africanos de Moçambique (NESAM).

In 1961, he was a founding member of the União Nacional dos Estudantes Moçambicanos (UNEMO) and, successively, General secretary and Vice-president of this student organization. Having left for Lisbon, he enrolled in the University of Medicine of Lisbon, in 1960 and 1961; subsequently, he left Portugal for political reasons, and enrolled in University of Poitiers in France, where he stayed up until 1963.

In 1962, Mocumbi participated in the creation of Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO), in Tanzania, and he participated in the elaboration of their Statutes, Program and Resolutions. In 1963, for the cause nationalist, he interrupted his studies and went to Tanzania, where he was designated member of Comité Central of FRELIMO and led the Department of Information and Propaganda of FRELIMO. From 1965 to 1967, he was the permanent representative of FRELIMO in Algeria.

In 1967, Mocumbi resumed his studies in the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, where he graduated as doctor, in 1973. During his medicine studies he received formation in nursing in the Cantonal University Hospital, what enabled him to work as a nurse and further his studies.

After concluding the studies, he worked in Switzerland, as Assisting Doctor in the Hospital of St. Loup, of 1973 to 1975, having passed his internship (surgery, obstetrics, medicine and pediatrics). He has a Diploma on Sanitary Planning obtained in Dakar, Senegal, in 1975.

Having returned to Mozambique, he assumed Doctor's responsibilities in the Obstetrics-gynecology section of the Hospital Central of Maputo, at the same time that was Director of the Hospital José Macamo, from 1975 to 1976; Obstetrician-gynecologist of the Central Hospital of Beira, accumulating Chief Provincial Doctor's positions and Provincial Director of Health of Sofala, from 1976 to 1980.

During his career, he participated, in the quality of Coordinator of the National Base in Beira, of the National campaign of Vaccinations, that culminated with the qualification of Mozambique for the eradication of measles. Between 1976 and 1979, he participated in the elaboration of the report about the Health in the World. OMS, 1978-79.

He was called to be part of the Government of the Republic of Mozambique in 1980, having assumed the office of Minister of Health up to 1987, when he assumed the office of Minister of the Foreign Affairs, a position in which he remained up to 1994. As holder of the diplomacy brief, he contributed enough to the neutralization of the external factors of the destabilization and normalization of the relationships of Mozambique with the West, in the peace process then in course in the country. He gave a special contribution in the coordination of the Government's effort for the reconstruction, control of the inflation and economic growth, between 1994 and 1999.

Paschal Mocumbi was a member of "WHO Task Forces on Health + Development", Geneva, from 1990 to 1999 and has been a member of the "Board of International Women Health Coalition", New York, since 1995.

He is also member of the Medical Association of Mozambique, since 1993, of the Associação Moçambicana of Health Public (AMOSAPU), of the Associação Moçambicana of Defense of the Family (AMODEFA) and of the Association of the Combatants of the Fight of National (ACLLN) Liberation. He dedicates a special professional interest to the maternal-infantile health, having given personal contribution, while Minister of health, for the creation of the nurses' maternal-infantile health basic level course. Participated in the creation and training of the surgery technicians' course, a fact that contributed to improve the service of obstetric urgencies, as well as of the surgical urgencies, at national level. He is co-author of publications such as "Practical Obstetrics", of 1987, and "Interventions in Obstetrics", of 1992.

He was awarded, nationally, with the medals of "Trabalho Socialista", "20 Anos da FRELIMO", "Veterano da Luta de Libertação Nacional", and abroad, with other honours as "Ordem Grande Cruzeiro do Sul" from Brazil, in 1992, and "Grau Cruz - Ordem de Bernardo O'Higgins" from Chile, in 1993.

Pascoal Manuel MOCUMBI is a founding member of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO), of the Frelimo Party and the Associação dos Combatentes da Luta de Libertação Nacional.

Pascoal Mocumbi is married to Adelina Isabel Bernardino Paindane Mocumbi and is the father of six children. He is a Presbyterian. He speaks Cicopi, Citsonga, Portuguese, French, and English, and his hobbies are reading and jogging.

He has a special interest in the World Health Organization and AIDS. He was Foreign Minister from 1987 to 1994, when he became Prime Minister. He left office in February 2004 in a government reshuffle. Dr Mocumbi is representative of the Medicines for Malaria venture and high representative of the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership. He is a strong supporter of the South African Malaria Initiative launched in Pretoria, South Africa, by South African minister of science and technology Mosibudi Mangena. The initiative emphasizes the need for wide-ranging partnerships to launch an attack on poverty and ill-health in order to staunch the spread of disease. The South African Malaria Initiative was initiated in 2005 by the African Centre for Gene Technologies, a joint venture between the Universities of Pretoria and Witwatersrand as well as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Africa's single biggest research organisation.