The reflection on the links between colonialism and (sub)development has focused on causal relations between colonial heritage and the perpetuation of disparities, much less on the means that dictated this social and territorial reproduction of poverty, or on the ways in which the colonial legacy relates to practices not regulated by the administration, either during the colonizing process or in the independent nation.This research, focusing on Mozambique and recognizing public works as territorial structuring elements fundamental to quality of life, proposes to discuss the patterns of urban and socioeconomic transformation of the last decades, and discuss practices of reconfiguration of the roles of the various actors in the current process of spatial transformation and the design of co-responsibility models.