The Mphanda Nkuwa (MNK) dam project on the Zambezi River allegedly poses severe social, environmental, and human rights risks, threatening over 1,400 families (at least 8,120 people) with forced displacement while disrupting fishing, farming, and livestock-dependent communities through flooding and altered river flows. Cultural heritage sites face submersion, downstream populations of about 350,000 in the Zambezi Delta risk food insecurity from lost floodplain agriculture—repeating harms seen with the Cahora Bassa dam—and locals report a repressive environment of threats, detentions, and suppressed expression.

Despite fieldwork by Justiça Ambiental and CCFD-Terre Solidaire revealing widespread mistrust from over 245 testimonies, skepticism toward unfulfilled job promises, misuse of resettlement land for a coal mine, and inadequate consultations, the project receives strong backing from the World Bank, African Development Bank, EU, and European Investment Bank, even as a risk assessment estimates potential USD 1.3 billion in financial losses from social and environmental conflicts.

The Business and Human Rights Centre invited EDF, TotalEnergies, Sumitomo Corporation, Electricidade de Moçambique, Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank to respond to allegations. "The Consortium" comprising EDF, TotalEnergies and Sumitomo Corporation responded; their response can be found below. Electricidade de Moçambique, Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank did not respond.