Malawi-Mozambique Border Realignment Paradox and Undesirable Impacts

Since 2011, Mozambique and Malawi have been embroiled in an unresolved border dispute stemming from a continental border realignment exercise - the African Union Border Program (AUBP). This largely successful program, which aims to transform Africa’s disputed and ill-defined borders “from barriers to bridges,” created a border oddity in which Malawi lost over 10km2 of land, encompasing several villages populated by about 12000 people and their farmlands, to Mozambique. Mozambique’s subsequent occupation of the area sparked incessant protests culminating in the death of one person in December 2017. This fallout brought to the fore the contradictions of an initiative that sought to secure territorial sovereignty by resolving border disputes, yet without full recourse to the existing local borderland dynamics. Drawing on qualitative data, this article critiques the AUBP’s socio-economic impact on Malawi-Mozambique borderland communities. I argue that the outcome has been paradoxical and counterproductive, not only for the borderland populations but also for the states themselves. The AUBP’s efforts towards eliminating sources of conflict between African states by realigning boundaries have, in the microcosmic case of Malawi and Mozambique, created inter- and intra-community borderland tensions, violence, and human security challenges that threaten to escalate into a broader state security crisis through conflict.