🇲🇿
Maputo
- Country
- Mozambique
- Population
- 1.1M
- Projects
- 3
- First project
- 2009
- Best evidence
- Official
- Last verified
- 7 August 2026
Almost everything Maputo knows about its own digital systems was reported by whoever paid for them. The land and property-tax database came with a World Bank programme and still runs the municipal counter; the waste-reporting line that cut response times from five days to fourteen hours was measured during its donor-funded phase and has published nothing comparable since; the bridge toll reports its own pilot results and no independent evaluation exists. That is not a scandal — it is the ordinary evidence position of a city this size, and it is worth naming, because the one place an outside verdict did arrive, it came from drivers blockading a toll plaza.
The atlas documents 3 projects in Maputo, the earliest dating to 2009: 3 still running without a verdict. Every entry carries an evidence grade — the strongest here is official (2 entries) — and links its sources.
How Maputo got smart
Maputo's digital layer begins at the counter. Under a World Bank-funded programme from 2009, the city built an integrated municipal management system linking land records, infrastructure and property-tax data to one database. Rebranded e.acacia, it still runs the desk where residents deal with the municipality — the unglamorous case of a donor-built system that outlived its programme by becoming the thing the office actually uses.
The second layer was designed for the phone people already had. MOPA lets residents report a full container or a missed collection by dialling a free USSD code from any handset, and grew from a four-neighbourhood pilot to 42 neighbourhoods, with a donor-phase evaluation counting 6,266 reports and response times falling from five days to 14 hours. The caveat is in the entry: those numbers date from the funded phase, and the public counters carry no timestamps.
The third is a toll. Since November 2018 the 3,041-metre Maputo-KaTembe bridge has linked two municipal districts, its data layer sitting entirely on the payment side: class-based tariffs, prepaid cards, a register of KaTembe residents paying a reduced rate, and a plate-reading pilot the concessionaire says cut passage time from about 30 to 3 seconds.
All 3 projects in Maputo
On a time axis, by the year each one started — 2009 to 2018. Pick a dot to read what it was.
All 3 projects in Maputo, as a list
✔ Every published entry is checked against the public sources it cites before publication.
Outcome: 3 ongoing — Evidence: 2 official · 1 media
How the pieces connect
Editorial links between Maputo's own entries — the city as a system, not a list.
- SIGEM Municipal Management System ↔ MOPA Participatory Waste Reporting (*311#)The register behind the municipal counter; MOPA is the channel residents use to reach that counter.
- MOPA Participatory Waste Reporting (*311#) ↔ Maputo-KaTembe Bridge & Ring Road Tolling (REVIMO)Residents report the bins for free by USSD; the bridge charges them, and both count their own performance.
What's next
Plans and announced trajectories — not yet documented results.
The toll is where the pattern shows its limit. Collection was suspended for weeks during the post-electoral protests, its resumption was met by drivers blockading the plaza and crossing on foot, and in May 2025 it was the government, not the concession's pricing model, that cut the rates. Maputo's three systems are all about who pays and who is served — and in the one case where the answer was contested, the settlement was political rather than technical.
Deeper reads
Where Maputo appears in the atlas's own analysis.
Compare with other cities
🇹🇭 Bangkok
Traffy Fondue: Bangkok's LINE-Based Problem Reporting
Citizen reporting tuned to local channels: Bangkok rides LINE, Maputo a free *311# USSD code that works on the cheapest basic phones.
🇧🇪 Brussels
FixMyStreet Brussels
Both route citizen reports to the responsible body — Brussels across 34 partner organisations, Maputo to sanitation crews and contractors.
🇲🇦 Casablanca
Casablanca City Portal & CasaChikaya Complaints
Both link separate municipal systems into one portal residents use — Maputo for land and tax, Casablanca for city services and complaints.
🇳🇴 Oslo
Oslo's Time- and Emission-Differentiated Toll Ring
Two pure revenue tolls: Oslo later priced by time and emissions; Maputo's rates were cut by government after drivers blockaded the plaza.
Show 3 more comparisonsShow fewer
- 🇲🇼 Lilongwe: eVax Cold Chain Guard — Digital Vaccine Cold-Chain Tracking Both trade paper registers for digital tracking — Lilongwe tags cold-chain fridges by QR code, Maputo links land and tax records.
- 🇧🇹 Thimphu: ARMS Digital Land & Property Records Same shift from counter to database — Maputo links land, infrastructure and tax records, Thimphu lets residents check land titles online.
- 🇪🇹 Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit China Exim-financed African megaprojects: Addis's light rail decayed in service; Maputo's bridge tolls sparked blockades and rate cuts.
Official strategy and sources
↗ Conselho Municipal de MaputoThe organization driving the city's smart-city work.
📎 Cite this city
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Smart-city projects in Maputo, Mozambique.” The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/cities/maputo/ (last verified 2026-08-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.