What caught your attention most when you became a cooperator and arrived in Mozambique?

The first time I arrived in Morocco, in the province of Niassa, I found a conflicting situation. What I had to do was open my eyes and ears, ask and try to understand. So I spent the first year, learning from them and understanding them, and I think that's why the next projects have come out.

What projects?

When we came to Mozambique, we had in mind a comprehensive programme for the development of the region that covered productive and economic aspects, health, education, infrastructure… However, after two or three years, we realized that it was better to focus on the productive and economic area, that in other areas our added value was small. Agriculture gradually gained strength, and at first we did a lot of work in creating small businesses, but the effort didn't work very well, and once we got really strong in agriculture, we started to get good results.

Above all, we have done two things that have produced very good results. One, in the early days, is the construction of roads and the other is the improvement of agricultural techniques. For example, fifteen years ago the ten most opulent baserritars in Marrupa had a harvest of about EUR 200 for the whole year and now thousands of baserritars are getting a better harvest in Marrupa. In addition, this year we have made a record: thanks to the techniques and advice of the baserritars, the revenue has exceeded EUR 10 million. That in Mozambique is equivalent to creating 15,000-20,000 jobs a year. And there is still room for increased profits.

What is the strategic plan for Mozambique at the moment?

We are clear about the north, we have to manage to increase the revenue of the baserritars here. On the other hand, we are reorganizing our internal functioning so that the foundation money reaches as many people as possible. The key is that we have more and more Mozambicans working at the foundation; we teach young people the march of the foundation, we prepare them for work and we expand the work team to reach as many farmers as possible.

We have between 10,000 and 15,000 baserritars and we are moving about 200 or 300 baserritarras teachers who have already learned the techniques a year, from one area to another and for five months. We are three external partners and we have 35 Mozambican workers among the secretaries and inspectors.

How would you define the living conditions of the locals?

Very unpleasant, insufficient for him: eating little and bad, sleeping on the ground and having cold in certain times, always between dust, with diseases, with high mortality rates...

People want to live better and one of the most important things they need to live better right now is to have some money to improve the house, buy mattress and blankets, or a radio, pay the school, for doctors… and they are willing to learn new things to get it.

This Mundukide programme in Mozambique is related to cooperatives. Does the philosophy of cooperatives also dominate your work?

As José María Arizmendiarreta, founder of the Mondragon Cooperative, politicians and soldiers want to govern the world, philosophers and scientists want to understand the world and the workers build the world. Development is also built and in our task there are no handouts, the message we convey to them is that nobody will give them the future, that they are the owners of their own life and that they will have to work to get ahead. This idea comes from the cooperatives of Mondragón and the surrounding villages that mainly finance Mundukide.

He has a critical view of cooperation.

Cooperation is not simple and they often sell it as if it were pink. Cooperation is equivalent to performing the most advanced neurosurgery. Mozambique is as it is because it is difficult to change things, if not, they too would change them on their own. In cooperation, we have to make difficult decisions, make great sacrifices to start working. Not accepting it often means more pretensions than good actions.

You said that Europe has hypermetropia and Mozambique has myopia.

The European who comes here knows how a developed country works or how it lives, but it does not know what path an underdeveloped country has to take in order to achieve development. Mozambique knows what it is to live in poverty, but it does not know what path to take in order to get out of poverty. When you ask the Mozambicans for ideas, they talk about what they know, one more mill, one more truck... Things nearby. On the contrary, the European who comes to Mozambique comes with nonsense, things that are too advanced for this community or things that are out of context. One of the difficulties is to combine these two extremes: that the one here learns to see further and that the one who comes from outside knows how to adapt his experience to the reality here.

Why have African countries lagged further behind in their development?

By history. Half of Europe was colonized by the Romans, and that is why it was not defeated. The Romans brought progress to other European countries, although this development also brought slavery, punishment and cruelty. Throughout Euroasia, at a time when an accelerated development process took place from 10,000 to 2,000 years ago, Africa was isolated and history has shown that to create new ideas a great movement of people, in contact with each other, is necessary. In sub-Saharan Africa, there were few people living, and new ideas came at a lower rate, no more mystery. And that is, since that isolation broke, Africa has had spectacular development. The transformation it has made in the last 50 years is equivalent to that which has been carried out elsewhere over the centuries and in the next 50 years will be developed in an extraordinary way. Movement is the best tool against injustice in the world. Ease of movement makes the best work to reduce inequalities.

You say that the idea of poverty is missing.

Poverty is a lack of money, but it is much more than a lack of money, and that is often very difficult to understand in the Basque Country. Poverty is also humiliation and dependence. The poor man obeys and the one who has money sends, and that is seen in many aspects of life. Poverty is ignorance, lack of school, ignorance of what happens outside of your nearby world, lack of information to interpret the world, lack of school to reason things in an orderly way...

Why is development necessary?

It's not necessary, it's inevitable. If the people here decided that I wanted to continue living as before, of course they are free to do so, and I would think so. But if the others prosper and you don't, tomorrow you will live under the domination of others. Here I will live free as long as you allow me to live in freedom, because when you decide that here is the gold you want, the oil or the safari you want, I will not have the strength to deal with what you decide, you will own my life. People and peoples have to develop it in order to develop their autonomy and they themselves realize that whoever comes here in a 4x4 command, and those who walk around have no opinion, no voice, no vote.

At the age of seventeen you have experienced a great deal.

Working here mainly produces two feelings. On the one hand, weight and despair, because living with everyday misery and seeing the misfortunes one after the other is not easy. On the other hand, the feeling that you are getting something, that we are going forward, that they are coming out of misery and that the locals are happy.

Where do you see yourself in the near future?

Life goes around a lot and you never know what can happen. I've long learned not to make long-term plans, you're here today, but tomorrow you don't know, a family member can get sick or create a new opportunity and go somewhere else. Who knows?

What message would you like to send to the Basques?

From Mozambique, the first thing I would say to Basque society is that the world is wide and that we do not live looking at our navel. In addition, in this vast world there are many good things remaining, people's lives are being improved. Furthermore, I would say that despite the difficulties that live in Euskal Herria, Basque society is among the 5% of those who best live in the world. So, enjoy and give some of that wealth to others to live closer to their standard of living.