Paper short abstract:

At the top of the state, key actors are senior officials sponsored by donors, thus creating “islands of efficiency” where the administration is particularly efficient. Policymaking is thus characterized by a close interface between the state and donors, as shown through a sociology of senior officials.

Paper long abstract:

At the top of the state in Mozambique, key actors are senior officials sponsored by donors, thus creating "islands of efficiency" where the administration is particularly efficient. Policymaking is thus characterized by a close interface between the state and donors, as shown in the paper through a sociology of senior officials in the tourism ministry.

Aid is indeed notably made of "administrative enclaves", where senior officials respond to the state, but are at the same time paid by donors such as the World Bank, which sponsors these "islands of efficiency" by providing important means (including competitive wages) as well as imposing its own agenda in policymaking.

The paper consists in a sociology of senior officials composing such an administrative enclave, namely the TFCA (Transfrontier Conservation Areas) Unit in the tourism ministry, as well as of some other Mozambican actors sponsored by other donors in the same ministry. The analysis of their professional careers and their worldviews is a first step towards the hypothesis of an international government of Africa, for the state and donors are worlds closely tied to one another.