Language: Portuguese
Currency: Kwanza (AOA)
Calling code: +244
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a
country on the west coast of Africa, whose main territory is
bordered to the North and Northeast by the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, to the East by Zambia, to the South by Namibia and to the
West by The Atlantic Ocean. It also includes the exclave of Cabinda,
through which it borders the Republic of Congo to the North. In
addition to the neighbors already mentioned, Angola is the closest
country to the British colony of Saint Helena.
The Portuguese
have been present since the fifteenth century in some parts of what
is now the territory of Angola, interacting in various ways with the
native peoples, especially with the inhabitants of the coast. The
first European to arrive in Angola was the Portuguese explorer Diogo
Cão. Angola was a Portuguese colony that only covered the current
territory of the country in the nineteenth century and the
"effective occupation", as determined by the Berlin Conference in
1884, happened only in the 1920s.
Independence from
Portuguese rule was achieved in 1975, after a war of independence.
Brazil was the first country to recognize the country's
independence, still in 1975. After independence, Angola was the
scene of a long and devastating civil war, from 1975 to 2002, mainly
between the MPLA and UNITA. Despite internal conflict, areas such as
lower Cassanje kept their regional monarchical systems active. In
2000, a peace agreement was signed with the front for the liberation
of the enclave of Cabinda, a guerrilla organization that fights for
the secession of Cabinda and is still active. It is from the Cabinda
region that approximately 65% of Angola's oil comes out.
The
country has vast natural resources, such as large reserves of
minerals and oil, and since 1990, its economy has shown growth rates
that are among the highest in the world, especially after the end of
the civil War. However, Angolan living standards remain low and
about 70% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day,
while life expectancy and infant mortality rates in the country
remain among the worst in the world, in addition to the prominent
presence of economic inequality, since most of the country's wealth
is concentrated in a disproportionately small part of the
population. Angola is also considered one of the least developed
countries on the planet according to the United Nations (UN) and one
of the most corrupt in the world by Transparency International.
Geographically, Angola can be divided into three
regions. The landscape areas begin with the coastal plain, and then pass
into the transition zone and further into the eastern highlands inland.
The lowland of the coast includes a strip of the Atlantic Ocean 50
to 150 kilometers wide. The transition zone is characterized by hills
and is 150 kilometers wide in the north and 30 kilometers wide in the
south. It is adjoined by the Bié Highlands. With an average altitude of
1,200 to 1,800 meters, it covers two-thirds of the country.
In
addition, the Cabinda exclave can be considered a separate region, since
it is located in the Zaire lowland and is separated from the main state
territory.
1 Luanda . The capital of Angola is Luanda, and it is
a lively city with a fascinating mix of Portuguese colonial architecture
and modern skyscrapers. Visitors can visit the National History Museum,
explore the central market Roque Santeiro or enjoy the beautiful beaches
in the area.
2 M'banza Congo (M'banza-Congo) . M'banza-Congo was the
political, religious and cultural center of the Kingdom of the Congo,
which existed between the 14th and 19th centuries. Attractions in
M'banza-Congo include royal palaces, churches and royal burial sites.
3 Benguela (São Felipe de Benguela) . This coastal town is known for
its relaxed atmosphere, colonial architecture and its proximity to the
beaches. Especially the "Praia Morena" is popular with tourists.
4
Lubango . Lubango is located in the Huíla province and is surrounded by
breathtaking landscapes. The "Tundavala Gorge" nearby offers a
breathtaking view of a gorge and is a popular place for hiking and
photography.
5 Namibe. This coastal town in the province of the same
name offers a fascinating desert landscape, including the famous desert
dunes of "Tômbwa". Here you can also explore some interesting rock
formations and caves.
6 Malanje . Malanje is located in the north of
Angola and is surrounded by lush vegetation and waterfalls. Especially
the "Kalandula Waterfall", one of the largest waterfalls in Africa, is
worth a visit.
Cangandala National Park that is located in Malanje Province and covers 600 square km is the smallest national park in the country. Yet it is fairly well developed comparing to the rest of the country.
Iona National Park in Angola is a favorite destination for an african safari. It protects an area of 9,960 km² and it is by far the largest national park in Angola.
Luanda is the largest city in Angola as well as its capital. It is situated on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in the Sao Paulo Province. Although it does have one of the highest crime rates in the country, it is the most civilized part of the country.
Quicama National Park is about 70 km from country's capital of Luanda and covers approximately 9,960 km² in North- west Angola. It protects an area of wetlands along with grasslands that is full of large animals.
1 Quiçama National Park (Parque Nacional da Quissama)
. This is a nature reserve that protects various ecosystems and species
of animals, including elephants, giraffes, zebras and various species of
birds. The complex includes Kissama National Park and Luando Nature
Reserve.
2 Kalandula Waterfalls (Quedas de Calandula) . These
impressive waterfalls, also known as Duque de Bragança Waterfalls, are
some of the largest in Africa. They are surrounded by lush vegetation
and offer an impressive sight.
3 Ilha de Luanda . This island off the
coast of Luanda is a popular holiday destination and offers beaches,
restaurants and a relaxed atmosphere.
4 Tundavala Gorge (Fenda da
Tundavala) . This spectacular gorge is located near Lubango and offers
breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains and plateaus. You can go
hiking and explore the natural beauty of this region.
Fortaleza de
São Miguel: This fortress, built in the 16th century, is located in
Luanda and served as an administrative center during the Portuguese
colonial period. It is one of the most important historical landmarks in
the country.
Ruins of M'banza-Congo: These ruins are located in the
province of Zaire and were once the capital of the Kingdom of Congo.
They offer insights into the precolonial history and architecture of the
region.
Tchitundu-Hulu Caves: These caves in southwestern Angola are
decorated with prehistoric rock paintings and testify to the early
settlement of the region by hunter-gatherers.
Cidade Velha de Kilwa:
This is a historic town on the coast of Angola, which served as a
commercial center during the Portuguese colonial period. The ruins of
the city offer insights into the transatlantic slave trade history of
the region.
Kulumbimbi Rock Paintings: These prehistoric rock
paintings are located in the province of Huíla and are an important
archaeological and cultural heritage of Angola.
Requirements before travelling
Both the German and
Swiss Foreign Ministries advise against traveling to the Cabinda 2022
exclave (with the exception of the city of Cabinda).
For tourist
entries, EU and EFTA citizens, with the exception of citizens of the
European dwarf states, no longer need a visa. They are allowed to stay
in the country for thirty days and enter a maximum of three times a
year.
In addition, proof of a valid yellow fever vaccination (in
Berlin also hepatitis A and B) is required. In addition, proof of US$
200 per planned day of stay is required. Contrary to international
practice, Angolan visas only entitle to entry for 60 days from the date
of issue.
For all other purposes, visual endorsements are still
required. For some categories, these can also be applied for faster in
the SME visa portal to obtain a pre-authorization (pre-autorização)
within 72 hours. The prior authorization must then be presented upon
entry together with the listed application documents (see embassy
websites).
In Germany, the responsible:
Consular section of
the embassy. Tel.: +49 30 240 89 728 . The embassy issues visas only for
30 days. The processing time is up to three weeks. There must be enough
cash to pay the fee. Open: Pers. Application (according to tel. By
appointment), weekdays except Wed.: 9.30-12.30. Price: Tourist (30
days): € 150, Express exhibition (in 8 days) € 250, (within 48 hours): €
500.
In Austria
Consular Section of the Angolan Embassy,
Seilerstätte 15/1/10 - 11, 1010 Vienna. Tel.: +43 1 718 74 88
(Information only 15.00-16.30). Tourist visa: up to 3 working days. Also
responsible for Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia. Form Download Opened:
Tue.-Do. 8.30-12-30, 13.30-16.30, Fr. shorter; appointment is generally
desired. Price: Tourist € 200 (Express € 400). Payment of fees via ATMs
in the house or bank transfer.
In Switzerland
Section
consulaire de l'ambassade, Thunstrasse 73, 3006 Berne. The duration of
the exhibition is 3 working days, but the application must be submitted
at least 3 weeks before arrival. Passport-remaining valid for at least
one year, proof of accommodation. Tourist Visa Formdownload Open:
Mon.-Do. 9.00-13.00, Fr. until 12.00; application for fingerprinting in
person only Mon, Tue. 9.30-12.30. Price: Tourist: 210 sfr.
Customs regulation
The controls at the airport in Luanda are strict.
Free quantities:
1 l of brandy or 2 l of wine
400 Cigarettes
50 ml of perfume
Cash US$ 5000 (above declaration); import and export
of the national currency is prohibited
max. 2 used electrical
appliances
Aircraft
International Airport: Luanda (4 de
Fevereiro) (IATA: LAD) , 4 km southeast of the city. Flights are
operated by British Airways (via London), TAP Portugal (via Lisbon) and
Ethiopian Airlines from Frankfurt am Main Airport. The ticket price for
the return flight starts at about 500 €.
Subway
There are no
rail connections to Angola.
By bus
Car/Motorcycle/Bicycle
Border crossings of Namibia are open. No carnet de passage was required.
Motorcycles are registered in Germany and Switzerland.(As of: Jan 2007)
By plane
TAAG Angola Airlines offers regular
flights throughout the country departing from Luanda to Cabinda,
Catumbela, Dundo, Harare, Huambo, Kuito, Lubango, Luena, Menongue,
Moçâmedes, Ondjiva, Saurimo, Soyo and Uíge
By boat
A passenger
ferry connects Luanda with the oil port of Soyo and the enclave of
Cabinda. Schedules and operators have changed over the years, inquiring
directly at the port is probably the easiest way to get information.
By car
The main roads in Luanda and the provinces are in
relatively good condition. However, during the rainy season
(November-April), bridges and even roads can be washed away by water.
When traveling outside of Luanda, travel with someone who knows the
local conditions, as conditions can be difficult. When traveling in
rural areas, beware of landmines. There may be a lack of gasoline. Avoid
driving after dark.
By taxi
Taxi drivers have a habit of
charging tourists more. On average distance the taxi costs 150 Kz. Do
not give more than 150 Kz in a medium-distance taxi, as these take
advantage and change the price.
We also have private taxis, which
are at the door of the airport, and can take you to your final
destination; the cost is timed, depending on the distance.
By bus
/ coach
There are some private bus companies that offer services like
MACOM and SGO being the largest. These companies offer a wide range of
services that deal with places one wants to travel, especially
interprovincial courses. There are lines connecting most of the major
cities of the country from the coast to the interior. Local
transportation is not safe.
By train / train
Angola's railway
system is finally being restored with the help of Chinese companies
after more than 30 years of disuse. There are three main lines that
reflect the country's colonial past, running from the inland to the
coast. They do not connect with each other.
The northern Luanda
Railway (CFL) line between the capital Luanda and Malenje is back in
full service. There are three classes, first, with reclining leather
seats with individual television sets; Exspresso, with comfortable
chairs arranged in fours around communal tables and televisions; and
Tramway, the cheapest option equipped with benches to maximize passenger
numbers. Ticket prices hover around 2,500 kwanzas ($26; $ 17). The
platforms are clean, Moderna carriages with functional toilets and a
restaurant car. There are daily departures.
The middle line, Benguela
Railway (CFB) has just started services between Lobito, Cubal and
Huambo, with some trains continuing to Luau on the border with the
Democratic Republic of Congo. There are several matches per week.
The
southern route Mocamedes Railway (CFM) runs between Namibe, Lubango and
Menongue.
The official language of Angola is Portuguese, although numerous African languages such as Kimbundu, Kikongo, Umbundu and Chokwe are also spoken in the country.
The national currency Kwanza (bank abbreviation AOA) was € 1 = 550 Kw in October 2023. value. Only 50000 Kwanza can be withdrawn from the machine every day. There are few exchange offices. (As of: Oct 2023)
The traditional cuisine of Angola is influenced by
Portuguese and Mozambican, having also received in recent years a strong
influence from Brazilian cuisine.
The most commonly used
ingredients are cereals grown for centuries in the country, among them
sorghum, millet and corn, as well as Friar beans, lentils, yams,
dinhungo (mutton squash) and okra. Among the fruits, the highlights are
for watermelon, tamarind and imbondeiro fruit. Palm oil (palm oil) is
important in the preparation of various recipes.
The most popular
dish in Angola is funge or funji, a dough cooked from corn or cassava
flour. It can accompany meat or fish. Another traditional recipe is
muamba, which can be prepared with chicken, dried meat or fish,
accompanied by okra and palm oil.
erally, dining out is not ery
easy in Angola, since e en in Luanda restaurant food is expensi E and
many of the less well-equipped restaurants ha e poor hygiene. However,
Angolan cuisine is varied and tasty, with local dishes based mainly on
fish, cassava products and spicy stews.
Angolan seafood is
abundant and very good, and the Angolan coast is a special place to eat
fresh lobster next to the fisherman's boat.
Tropical fruit in
Angola is also a treat because artisanal production has maintained
organic methods so that rich fruit flavors predominate, unusual to
Western palates accustomed to industrially produced tropical fruits. If,
however, you are situated in Luanda and need to dine, it is recommended
that you can get to the island of Luanda, where beach restaurants (of
very exclusive or quite informal price classes) can serve most Foreign
needs. Restaurants in Luanda grew in number and quality after the 2002
ceasefire brought stability and significant investment to the country.
Be careful: when eating out, do not drink tap water, ask for bottled
mineral water instead.
Not all restaurants accept U.S. dollars in
cash; ask before ordering. Credit cards will not be accepted at most
restaurants, although this is changing rapidly.
Typical dishes
In addition to funge and muamba, they are part of traditional Angolan
cuisine, among others:
Calulu.
Cocada.
Kissangua (drink
prepared with water, rolão, cornmeal palapala, and sugar).
Beans with
palm oil.
Gonguenha (beans, pumpkin and bone broth).
Motet.
Mututo (plant whose leaves are prepared as a stew, seasoned with
tomatoes, onions, garlic and bay leaf).
Muffin (horse mackerel fish,
banana bread, chopped onion (vinaigrette), palm oil beans, sweet
potatoes).
(It is the same as funge).
Quibeba (stew of cuttlefish,
fish, beans or dried meat, accompanied by cassava, sweet potatoes or
dinhungo).
Sumatena or Súmate (dried fish or dried meat roasted on
coals, with warm water sauce dinhungo).
Funji with kizaka.
Kinhame.
Potato.
Corn.
Masesi, some dick bugs.
Kiquanga.
Otchikango.
Mengueleca (leaf of the dome).
Kizaca (mandioquera
leaf).
Sweet potato branch.
Some of the typical festivals of Angola are:
Festas Do Mar-these traditional festivals called Festas Do Mar, take
place in the city of Namibe. These festivals come from an ancient
tradition with a cultural, recreational and sporting character. They are
usually held in the summer season and it is customary to have
exhibitions of products related to agriculture, fisheries, construction,
oil and agriculture.
Carnival-the main parade takes place on Avenida
da marginal de Luanda. Several Carnival Corsicans, allegorical Corsicans
parade on one of the main avenues of Luanda De Benguela do Bie and Dos
Manga B.
Festivals of Our Lady of Muxima-sanctuary of Muxima is
located in the municipality of Kissama, Bengo province and throughout
the year receives thousands of faithful. It is a very popular festival
that takes place every year and that inevitably attracts numerous
tourists, due to its religious characteristics.
Apart from the
nightclubs and bars, mostly located on the island of Luanda and others
scattered around the city.
World-class hotels include Tropico Hotel, Alvalade
Hotel, Le President Meridien Hotel, Continental Hotel, Skyna Hotel, Epic
Sana hotel and Palm Beach Hotel among others.
In Luanda there are
several quality hotels.
In Angola, dance distinguishes several genres,
meanings, forms and contexts, balancing the recreational aspect with its
condition as a vehicle for religious communication, healing, ritual and
even social intervention. Not restricted to the traditional and popular
scope, it is also manifested through academic and contemporary
languages. The constant presence of dance in everyday life is the
product of an appealing cultural context for the interiorization of
rhythmic structures from an early age. Starting with the close contact
of the child with the movements of the mother (on whose back she is
transported), this connection is strengthened through the participation
of young people in the different social celebrations (young people are
the ones who are most involved), where dance proves to be decisive as a
factor of integration and preservation of identity and community
feeling.
After several centuries of Portuguese colonization,
Angola ended up also suffering mixtures with other cultures currently
present in Brazil, Mozambique and Cape Verde. With this, Angola today
stands out for the most diverse musical styles, having as main ones: the
Semba, the Kuduro, the Kizomba and the Tarraxinha.
There was a civil war in Angola until 2002. The
security situation can be called relaxed in 2023. Overland trips with
your own vehicle can currently be carried out in the south and the
center of Angola without greater risk (avoid night trips). In the north
of Angola, especially on the border with the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, the security situation is a little more tense. The German Foreign
Office recommends: "If possible, refrain from traveling to Cabinda and
the diamond areas of the provinces of Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul.“ (As
of: Oct 2023)
Mines and war scrap
After almost 30 years of
civil war, the country is contaminated with mines and ammunition parts
as well as war equipment. The landmines laid during the Civil War
represent a difficult-to-calculate risk. According to estimates, about
eight million of them were in Angola. Therefore, some basic rules must
be observed.
Basic rule:
Where no local goes, you should not
go either.
You should also not use unpaved roads and paths that are
not used by locals.
Red stones or wooden pegs are not fetishes, but
mark minefields. In addition, there are skulls or triangular signs with
the corresponding inscription.
Old military equipment is not an
opportunity to play or take heroic photos, but an opportunity to
explode.
Ammunition or ammunition parts are not a souvenir, but
another way of exploding (Even if local children often play there).
Not everything you see has to be touched.
Going to pee on a street
behind a tree can be fatal.
It should also be noted that not all
locals pay attention to the danger. UNICEF has therefore launched a
corresponding program to increase the so-called “mine awareness” (see
also here). The elimination of all mines is not expected before 2025.
The health care system in Angola is in a desolate
state. Far away from the big cities, there is almost no no medical care
(one doctor per 50,000 inhabitants). The only recommendation: Catholic
Hospital in Lubango.
Hygiene
Clean drinking water is rare.
Less than 40% of the country has access to clean water. This results in
a high infant mortality rate. Therefore, for travelers, filtering or
decoction is considered the method of choice. Due to the fecal-oral
route of transmission of hepatitis A, vaccination is absolutely
recommended and prescribed for foreign visitors for the visa
application.
Preventive vaccinations
The health service of the
Federal Foreign Office recommends vaccinations against tetanus
(tetanus), diphtheria, polio (polio), hepatitis A and typhoid fever, and
for long-term stays of more than four weeks, hepatitis B, meningococcal
disease (ACWY) and rabies.
Special infectious diseases
Angola
is a yellow fever infection area. Hence the requirement for a yellow
fever vaccination for all arrivals over 1 year. In addition, Angola is
malaria area. Prophylaxis is recommended.
The most pleasant travel time for European tourists is
June to August, because then it is winter in Angola and a pleasant 25 °C
without big rainy seasons are the rule.
The climate ranges from
temperate to tropical. The annual amount of precipitation decreases from
north to south. Due to the cool Benguela Current, the coast is quite dry
up to about the city of Benguela. In the area of this ocean current, it
often gets quite cool even in winter (June to August). The city of
Namibe even has a rather cold, but dry and sunny climate in winter. In
the summer Namibe is hot, it rains rarely. Towards the interior of the
country, precipitation is increasing. Cities such as Lubango and Huambo
have two annual rainy seasons and temperate climate. On the other hand,
Luanda, the capital, is hot and oppressive almost all year round - the
winter months are the most pleasant here.
Mobile phone networks in the larger cities,
occasionally the 5G expansion began in 2022. Swisscom cards work, for
Deutsche Telekom the country is in the expensive country group 3 when it
comes to roaming.
Mobile service providers are Movicel, NetOne,
the rapidly expanding US-owned Africell since 2022, as well as Unitel
(with barely usable data packages). The other three providers have in
common that purchased data packages expire after 30 days.
The name Angola is a Portuguese derivation of the term banto n'gola, title of the Kings of the Kingdom of Dongo existing at the time when the Portuguese settled in Luanda, in the sixteenth century.the term has roots in the term ngolo which means "strength" in quimbundo and quicongo, languages of the Ambundo and congos peoples respectively. When the Portuguese arrived in the region of Luanda province, they observed that the local monarch, Angola Quiluanje was so named, coming to call the Kingdom Angola-Dongo with this title.
The original inhabitants of Angola were
hunter-gatherers, scattered and few in number. The expansion of the
Bantu peoples, arriving from the north from the second millennium
onwards, forced the coissã (when they were not absorbed) to retreat to
the south where residual groups exist to this day, in Angola (see ethnic
map), Namibia and Botswana.
The Bantu were farmers and hunters.
Their expansion from West-Central Africa took place in smaller groups,
which relocated according to political-economic and ecological
circumstances. Between the 14th and 17th centuries, a series of kingdoms
were established, the main one being the Kingdom of the Congo which
encompassed the northwest of today's Angola and an adjacent strip of
today's Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Republic of the Congo and
Gabon; its capital was located in Mabanza Congo and its heyday took
place during the 13th and 14th centuries.
Another important
Kingdom was the Kingdom of Dongo, constituted at that time
south/southeast of the Kingdom of Congo. In the northeast of present-day
Angola, but with its center in the south of the present Democratic
Republic of the Congo, the Kingdom of Lunda was constituted, without
contact with the aforementioned Kingdoms.
In 1482 a Portuguese
fleet arrived at the mouth of the Congo River, commanded by Navigator
Diogo Cão who immediately established relations with the Kingdom of
Congo. This was the first contact of Europeans with inhabitants of the
territory now covered by Angola, a contact that would be decisive for
the future of this territory and its populations.
From the end of the fifteenth century, Portugal
followed a dual strategy in the region. On the one hand, it was
continuously present in the Kingdom of the Congo, through (always few,
but influential) cultured priests (Portuguese and Italian) who promoted
a slow Christianization and introduced elements of European culture. On
the other hand, he established in 1575 a factory in Luanda, in a point
of easy access to the sea and the proximity of the kingdoms of Congo and
Dongo. They gradually took control, through a series of treaties and
wars, of a strip stretching from Luanda towards the Kingdom of Dongo.
This territory, still quite limited in size, was later designated as
Angola. Through the kingdoms of Congo, Dongo and Matamba, Luanda
developed a slave trade to Portugal, Brazil and Central America that
became its economic base. This process has to be seen against the
backdrop of a systematic slave trade from Luanda.
The Dutch
occupied Angola between 1641 and 1648, seeking to establish alliances
with African states in the region. In 1648, Portugal retook Luanda and
began a process of military conquest of the Congo and Dongo states that
ended with the victory of the Portuguese in 1671, resulting in control
over those kingdoms.
However, Portugal had begun to extend its
presence on the coast towards the South. In 1657 he established a
settlement near the current city of Porto Amboim, transferred in 1617 to
the current Benguela that became a second factory, independent of
Luanda. Benguela gradually took control over a small territory to the
North and East, and in turn began a slave trade, with the help of
African intermediaries based in the Central Highlands of today's Angola.
Although since the beginning of its presence in Luanda and Benguela,
there have been occasional incursions by the Portuguese beyond the small
territories under its control, serious efforts to penetrate the interior
only began in the first decades of the nineteenth century, slowed in the
middle of that century, but restarted with more vigor in its last
decades. These advances were partly military, aimed at establishing a
lasting dominion over certain regions, and generally had to overcome, by
arms, a greater or lesser resistance of the respective populations. In
other cases, however, it was only a question of creating outposts
designed to facilitate the extension of commercial networks. Particular
forms of economic penetration were developed in the South, starting from
Moçâmedes (today Namibe). Finally, in that century the first Catholic
missions were established beyond the perimeters controlled by Luanda and
Benguela.
When the Berlin Conference was held in 1884/85, aimed
at settling the distribution of Africa among the colonial powers,
Portugal could assert a secular presence in two points of the coast, and
a more recent presence (administrative/military, commercial, missionary)
in a series of points of the interior, but it was very far from an
"effective occupation" of the territory now covered by Angola.
Faced with the threat of the other colonial powers appropriating parts
of the territory claimed by Portugal, this country finally began,
following the Berlin Conference, an effort aimed at the occupation of
the entire territory of present-day Angola. Given their limited
resources, progress in this direction was, however, slow: as late as
1906, only 5% to 6% of the territories could, with any reason, be
considered "actually occupied". Only after the advent of the Republic in
Portugal, in 1910, did the expansion of the colonial state advance more
consistently. By the mid-1920s, full control of the territory was
achieved, although there was still a brief outbreak of "primary
resistance" on the part of the vacuval ethnic group in 1941. Although
slow, this occupation effort nevertheless provoked new social, economic
and political dynamics.
Once the desired "effective occupation" was achieved,
Portugal — better said: the dictatorial regime, meanwhile established in
that country by António de Oliveira Salazar — concentrated in Angola on
consolidating the colonial state. This goal has been achieved with some
effectiveness. In a relatively short period of time, an administrative
machine was built, endowed with a not faultless but undoubtedly
significant capacity for control and management. This ensured the
functioning of an economy based on two pillars: that of a Portuguese
immigration that, in a few decades, made the European population rise to
more than 100,000, with a strong business component, and that of an
African population without the right to citizenship, for the most part —
that is, with the exception of the (agro-)pastoral peoples of the —
small-scale agriculture oriented to the products required by the
colonizer (coffee, corn, sisal), paying taxes and fees of various kinds,
and often forced, by economic circumstances and/or administrative
pressure, to accept salaried work usually poorly paid.
Between
1939 and 1943, the Portuguese army carried out operations against the
Mucubal nomads, accused of rebellion, which led to the death of half of
their population. The survivors were incarcerated in forced labor camps,
where the vast majority of them perished due to the brutality of the
labor system, malnutrition and executions.
In the 1950s, a
multifaceted resistance began to be articulated against colonial
domination, driven by the decolonization that had begun on the African
continent after the end of World War II in 1945. This resistance, which
aimed at transforming the colony of Angola into an independent country,
led from 1961 to an armed combat against Portugal that had three main
protagonists:
the Popular Movement for the liberation of Angola
(MPLA), whose main social base was the ambundos and the mestizo
population, as well as parts of the White intelligence, and which had
ties to communist parties in Portugal and countries belonging to the
then Warsaw Pact;
the National Front for the liberation of Angola
(FNLA), with strong social roots among the congos and ties to the United
States government and the Mobutu Sese Seko regime in Zaire, among
others;
the National Union for the Total independence of Angola
(UNITA), socially rooted among the ovimbundos and beneficiary of some
support from China.
Soon after the start of the armed conflict, a
"liberal wing" within Portuguese politics imposed an incisive
reorientation of colonial policy. Revoking already in 1962 the statute
of the Indigenato and other discriminatory provisions, Portugal granted
citizen rights to all the inhabitants of Angola that from "colony"
became "province" and later the "state of Angola". At the same time, it
greatly expanded the education system, thus giving the black population
entirely new possibilities for social mobility — through schooling and
then through jobs in the Civil Service and the private economy.
The purpose of this reorientation was to win "minds and hearts" of the
Angolan populations to the model of a multi-racial Angola that would
remain part of Portugal, or be closely linked to the "metropolis". This
option was, however, rejected by the three liberation movements that
continued their struggle. However, there were more setbacks than
progress, and in the early 1970s the chances of achieving independence
by arms became very slim.
In most of the territory life continued
with colonial normalcy. Admittedly, there have been a number of security
measures, of which some — such as circulation controls, or the
establishment of "concentrated villages" in areas such as the Central
Plateau, in the Cuanza Norte and in the Cuanza Sul. - affected the
population to a greater or lesser degree.
The situation changed
completely when in April 1974 the Carnation Revolution took place in
Portugal, a military coup that put an end to the dictatorship in
Portugal. The new holders of power immediately proclaimed their
intention to allow the Portuguese colonies access to independence
without delay.
The prospect of independence brought about by the
Carnation Revolution in Portugal in April 1974, and the immediate
cessation of fighting by Portuguese military forces in Angola, led to a
fierce armed struggle for power between the three movements and their
allies.
The FNLA entered Angola with a regular army, trained and
equipped by the Zairian Armed Forces, with US support; the MPLA was able
to quickly mobilize the intervention of thousands of Cuban soldiers,
with logistical support from the Soviet Union; and UNITA obtained the
support of the Armed Forces of the apartheid regime then in force in
South Africa. Efforts by the new Portuguese regime to form a government
of national unity were unsuccessful. However, the MPLA leadership's
struggle for power, both before and after the declaration of
independence, caused numerous casualties.
The armed conflict led
to the departure — to Portugal, but also to South Africa and Brazil — of
most of the approximately 350,000 Portuguese who were then based in
Angola. As a result of colonial policy, these constituted the bulk of
the cadres of the territory, which led to the collapse of Public
Administration, industry, agriculture and Commerce. On the other hand,
the ovimbundos who had been recruited by the colonial administration to
work in the coffee and tobacco plantations and diamond mines of the
North, also decided to return to their homelands in the Central
Highlands. The once prosperous Angolan economy thus fell into decay.
On November 11, 1975, the independence of Angola was proclaimed by
the MPLA in Luanda, and by the FNLA and UNITA, together in Huambo. The
Portuguese armed forces that still remained in the territory returned to
Portugal.
With the independence of Angola began two processes
that conditioned each other. On the one hand, the MPLA — which in 1977
adopted Marxism-Leninism as a doctrine — established a political and
economic regime inspired by the model then in force in the countries of
the "socialist bloc", therefore single-party and based on a state
economy, centrally planned. While the political component of this regime
came to work within the postulated molds, albeit with somewhat less
rigor than in certain "socialist" countries of Europe. The economic
component was severely damaged by the armed struggle and, in essence,
was sustained only thanks to the oil whose exploitation the regime
entrusted to American oil companies.
On the other hand, the
Angolan Civil War between the three movements began shortly after the
declaration of independence, since the FNLA and, above all, UNITA were
not satisfied either with their military defeat or with their exclusion
from the political system. This war lasted until 2002 and ended with the
death, in combat, of the historical leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi.
Rarely assuming the character of a "regular" war, it consisted
essentially of a guerrilla war that in the 1990s involved practically
the entire country. It cost thousands of dead and wounded and major
destruction in villages, cities and infrastructure (roads, railways,
bridges). A considerable part of the rural population, especially in the
Central Highlands and some eastern regions, fled to the cities or to
other regions, including neighbouring countries.
In the late
1990s, the MPLA decided to abandon Marxist-Leninist doctrine and change
the regime to a system of multiparty democracy and a market economy.
UNITA and FNLA agreed to participate in the new regime and ran in the
first elections held in Angola in 1992, from which the MPLA emerged as
the winner. Not accepting the results of these elections, UNITA
immediately resumed the war, but participated at the same time in the
political system.
Soon after the death of its historic leader,
UNITA abandoned its arms and its armed wing — the Armed Forces for the
liberation of Angola (FALA) — was demobilized or integrated into the
Angolan armed forces. Like the FNLA, it began to focus on participation,
as a party, in Parliament and other political bodies. In the situation
of peace, after four decades of armed conflict, the reconstruction of
the country began and, thanks to a remarkable growth of the economy, a
development globally quite marked, but for now with strong regional
disparities and social inequalities. Peace is also favouring the
consolidation of a comprehensive, "national" social identity, which
began to form gradually from the 1950s.
Politically, it continues
to have a strong predominance of the MPLA, which obtained clear
parliamentary majorities in the elections held in 1992, 2008 and 2012,
guaranteeing the permanence in the functions of President of the state,
between 1979 and 2017, of José Eduardo dos Santos. While the FNLA
virtually disappeared from the scene, UNITA consolidated its position as
the main opposition party in the 2012 elections. At the economic level,
Angola experienced strong growth on the one hand, facing difficulties
that forced it to request support from the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), failing to stop the emergence of very sharp economic and social
inequalities.
Angola is located on the southern Atlantic coast of
West Africa, between Namibia and the Republic of Congo. It also borders
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia to the East. The country
is divided between an arid coastal strip stretching from Namibia almost
to Luanda, a humid interior plateau, a dry savanna in the south and
southeast interior, and tropical forest in the North and Cabinda.
The Zambezi River and several tributaries of the Congo River have
their sources in Angola. The coastal strip is tempered by the cold
Benguela Current, originating a climate similar to that of the coast of
Peru or Baja California. There is a short rainy season, which lasts from
February to April. Summers are hot and dry, winters are temperate.
The Inland Highlands have a mild climate with a rainy season from
November to April, followed by a cooler dry season from May to October.
The altitudes vary greatly, with the most inland areas between 1000 and
2000 m.the northern regions and Cabinda have rains throughout almost the
entire year. Most of Angola's rivers originate in the Bié plateau, the
main ones are: the Cuanza, the Cuango, the Cuando, the Cubango and the
Cunene.
Angola, despite being located in a tropical zone, has
a climate that is not characterized for this region, due to the
confluence of three factors: the Benguela Current, cold, along the
southern part of the coast; the relief in the interior; and the
influence of the Namib Desert, to the southwest.
As a result, the
climate of Angola is characterized by two seasons: the rainy season,
from October to April and the dry season, known as Cacimbo, from May to
August, drier, as the name implies and with lower temperatures. On the
other hand, while the coastline has high rainfall rates, which decrease
from North to South and from 800 mm to 50 mm, with average annual
temperatures above 23 °C, the Inland zone can be divided into three
areas: north, with great rainfall and high temperatures; Central
Plateau, with a dry season and average temperatures of the order of 19
°C; and South with rather sharp thermal amplitudes due to the proximity
of the Calaari Desert and the influence of tropical air masses.
The population of Angola in 2014, after the first
post-independence census and the final results of the 2014 General
Census of Population and housing, is 25,789,024 inhabitants, 52% of whom
are female.
The country's population is expected to grow to more
than 47 million people by 2060, nearly doubling from 24.3 million in
2014. The last official census was conducted in 1970 and showed that the
total population was 5.6 million inhabitants.
The population consists of 37% ovimbundos (umbundu
language), 25% ambundos (quimbundo language), 13% congos and 32% other
ethnic groups (such as the chócues, ovambos, vambunda and xindongas), as
well as about 2% mestizos (mixture of Europeans and Africans) and 1%
Europeans. The ethnicities of the ambundos and ovimbundos form,
combined, the majority of the population (62%).
Angola is
estimated to have received just over 12,000 refugees and about 3,000
asylum seekers by the end of 2007. About 11,000 of these refugees were
originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who arrived in
1970. In 2008, it was estimated that there were approximately 400,000
migrant workers from the DRC, at least 30,000 Portuguese and about
259,000 Chinese living in Angola.
Since 2003, more than 400,000
Congolese immigrants have been expelled from Angola. Before independence
in 1975, Angola had a Lusitanian community of about 350,000 people; in
2013 there were about 200,000 Portuguese registered with consulates. The
Chinese population is 258,920 people, mostly made up of temporary
migrants. The country's total fertility rate is 5.54 children per woman
(2012 estimates), the 11th highest in the world.
Portuguese is the official language of Angola. Among
the African languages spoken in the country, some have the status of a
national language. These, like the other African languages, are spoken
by their respective ethnicities and have dialects corresponding to
ethnic subgroups. The ethnic language with the most speakers in Angola
is umbundo, spoken by the ovimbundos in the south-central region of
Angola and in many urban areas. It is the mother tongue of about a third
of Angolans..
Quimbundo (or kimbundo) is the second most spoken
ethnic language — by about a quarter of the population, the ambundos
living in the north-central zone, on the Luanda-Malanje axis and in the
Southern Cuanza. It is a language with great relevance, as it is the
language of the capital and the ancient kingdom of Dongo. It was this
language that gave many words to the Portuguese language and vice versa.
The quicongo (or kikongo) spoken in the North, (Uíge and Zaire) has
several dialects. It was the language of the former Kingdom of the
Congo, and with the postcolonial migration of the congos to the South it
now has a significant presence also in Luanda. Also in this region, in
the province of Cabinda, fiote or ibinda is spoken. Chócue (or tchokwe)
is the language of the East, par excellence. It has overlapped with
others in the eastern zone and is, without a doubt, the one that has had
the greatest expansion through the territory of present-day Angola, from
Lunda Norte to Cuando-Cubango. Cuanhama (kwanyama or oxikwanyama),
nhaneca (or nyaneca) and especially umbundo are other languages of banta
origin spoken in Angola. In the south of Angola, other languages are
still spoken, some belonging to the coissã group, spoken by small groups
of san, also called Bushmen, others spoken by small Bantu ethnic groups.
Although ethnic languages are those usually spoken by the majority
of the population, Portuguese is the first language of 40% of the
Angolan population — a proportion that is much higher in the capital of
the country —, while about 71% of Angolans claim to use it as a first or
second language. Six ethnic languages have the official status of"
national language": in order of numerical importance they are umbundo,
quimbundo, quicongo, chócue, ganguela and cuanhama. These languages
occupy a certain (limited)space in the media, in documents (e.g.
warnings) issued by official entities and in education.
In Angola there are currently about 1000 religions
organized in churches or similar forms. Reliable data as to the numbers
of the faithful do not exist, but the vast majority of Angolans adhere
to a Christian religion or inspired by Christianity. About 41% of the
population is linked to the Catholic Church and about 38% to one of the
Protestant churches: the Baptists (Baptist Convention of Angola and
Evangelical Baptist Church in Angola), rooted mainly among the congos,
the Methodists, concentrated in the ambundos area, and the
congregational, implanted among the ovimbundos, in addition to smaller
communities of reformed Protestants and Lutherans. To these must be
added Adventists, neo-apostolics and a large number of Pentecostal
churches, some of which have a strong Brazilian influence. There are,
finally, two syncretic churches, the quimbanguists originating in
Congo-Quinxassa, and the tocoists who were constituted in Angola, both
with communities of very limited size. It is significant, but not
amenable to quantification, the proportion of people without religion.
Practitioners of traditional African religions constitute a small
minority, of a residual nature, but among Christians there are, with
some frequency, beliefs and Customs inherited from those religions.
There are only 1 to 2% of Muslims, almost all immigrants from other
countries (e.g. West Africa), whose diversity does not allow them to
constitute a community, although they are all Sunni. An increasing part
of the urban population has no or does not practice any religion, which
is due less to the influence of Marxism-Leninism officially professed in
the first postcolonial phase, and more to the international trend
towards secularization. On the other hand, the experience of the Angolan
Civil War and severe poverty have led many people to a greater intensity
of their faith and religious practice, or else to join new churches
where religious fervor is greater. The Catholic Church, the traditional
Protestant churches and one or the other of the Pentecostal churches
have social works of some importance, designed to fill deficiencies both
in society and in the state. Both the Catholic Church and the
traditional Protestant churches occasionally speak out on political
issues. Its role in the anti-colonial and civil wars has given rise to
controversy.
The current political regime in Angola is
presidentialism, in which the president of the Republic is also the head
of government, who also has legislative powers. The executive branch of
the government is composed of President João Lourenço, vice-president
Esperança da Costa and the Council of Ministers. The governors of the 18
provinces are appointed by the president and carry out his directives.
The Constitutional Law of 1992 established the broad outlines of the
structure of government and framed the rights and duties of citizens.
The legal system is based on Portuguese and customary law, but is weak
and fragmented. There are courts in only 12 of the country's more than
140 municipalities.
Among the aspects that deserve special
attention are those resulting from the policies called decentralization
and deconcentration, adopted in recent years, and which refer to the
need to analyze the political reality at the regional (everything goes
up provincial) and local levels. On the other hand, Angola is beginning
to feel a certain international weight, particularly at the regional
level, due to its economic strength and military might.
What
these mechanisms mean in practice can only be understood against the
background of the overwhelming weight, in terms of electoral results and
the holding and exercise of power, of the party that imposed itself in
the decolonization process and the civil war that followed it, the MPLA.
In fact, the regime described above falls into the category of a
dominant party system that does everything to perpetuate itself.
In 2014, Angola rose two places in the world ranking of e-government,
according to the e-Government Development Index report published by the
UN, which analyzes the use of information and communication technology
by governments in the dissemination of information and public services
on the Internet. The average E-Government Development Index in Africa is
0.27. Angola is above the African average with a development index of
0.3.
A Supreme Court serves as an appellate court. The
Constitutional Court is the supreme body of constitutional jurisdiction,
it had its Organic Law approved by law N.° 2/08, of 17 June, and its
first task was the validation of the candidacies of political parties to
the legislative elections of 5 September 2008. A new Angolan Penal Code
is expected to come into force in 2014, as a result of the already
completed revision of the legislation in force. According to the judge
advisor of the Angolan Constitutional Court, Tomás Miguel, who
coordinates the Justice and Law Reform Commission (CRJD), the
criminalization of money laundering is one of the novelties provided for
in the new legislation.
Legislative elections were held on 5 and 6 September
2008, the first elections since 1992. The elections went smoothly and
were considered valid by the international community, but not before
several NGOs and international observers denounced some irregularities.
The MPLA obtained more than 80% of the votes, UNITA about 10%, with the
remaining votes distributed by a number of small parties, of which only
one (PRS, Lunda regional) managed to elect a deputy. The MPLA could
therefore now govern with an overwhelming majority.
According to
the new constitution, adopted in January 2010, presidential elections
are not held, with the president and Vice president being the heads of
list of the party that has the majority in the legislative elections.
The new constitution has been criticized for not consolidating democracy
and using the symbols of the MPLA as national symbols.
The
Angolan regime held its first general elections on 31 August 2012, a new
constitutional model, following the merger of legislative and
presidential elections, respecting for the first time the constitutional
period of 4 years between elections. In addition to the 5 parties with
seats in the National Assembly — MPLA, UNITA, PRS (social Renewal
Party), FNLA, ND (New Democracy) — there were 67 other parties in
principle eligible to run. José Eduardo dos Santos announced at one
point his intention not to be a candidate again, but ended up heading
his party's list. As the MPLA again won the elections, with about 71%
(175 deputies), he was automatically elected president, in accordance
with the constitutional rules in force. UNITA increased its quota to
about 18% (32 deputies), and the Broad Convergence for the Salvation of
Angola (CASA), recently founded by Abel Epalanga Chivukuvuku, obtained
6% (8 deputies). In addition to these three parties, the social Renewal
Party (PRS, 3 deputies) and the FNLA (2 deputies) also managed to enter
parliament, with votes slightly less than 2%. The disparities between
regions are very significant, especially as regards the results of the
opposition parties: in the provinces of Cabinda and Luanda, for example,
the opposition obtained about 40% of the votes, while UNITA's share was
about 30% in Huambo and Luanda, and 36% in Bié. The abstention rate was
the highest since the start of multiparty elections: 37.2 percent, up
from 12.5 percent in 2008.
On 16 October 2014, Angola was elected for the second
time as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council,
with 190 votes in favour out of a total of 193. The term of office began
on 1 January 2015 and lasted for two years.
Since January 2014,
the Republic of Angola holds the presidency of the International
Conference for the Great Lakes region (ICGLR). In 2015, the Executive
Secretary of CIRGL, Ntumba Luaba, stated that Angola is the example to
be followed by the members of the organization, due to the significant
advances registered over the 12 years of peace, namely in terms of
socio-economic and political-military stability.
However, the 27-year civil war caused great damage to
the country's political and social institutions. The United Nations
estimates the number of internally displaced people at 1.8 million,
while the most widely accepted figure among those affected by the war is
4 million. Daily living conditions throughout the country and especially
in Luanda (which has a population of about 4 million, although some
unofficial estimates point to a much higher number) mirror the collapse
of administrative infrastructures as well as many social institutions.
The serious economic situation of the country makes it impossible to
provide effective government support to many social institutions. There
are hospitals without medicines or basic equipment, there are schools
that do not have books and civil servants often do not have what they
need for their work. In addition, the country was classified as "not
free" by Freedom House in its 2013 Freedom in the World Report, where
the organization also notes that the August 2012 parliamentary
elections, in which the Popular Movement for the liberation of Angola
won more than 70% of the vote, had serious flaws, such as outdated and
inaccurate voter lists.
The country is also classified as an"
authoritarian regime " and as one of the least democratic nations in the
world, ranking 133rd.Ranked among the 167 countries analyzed by the 2011
Democracy Index, calculated by The Economist Intelligence Unit. Angola
also ranked poorly in the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, when
it was ranked 39th.Ranked among the 52 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa,
with a particularly poor assessment in areas such as" participation and
Human Rights"," Sustainable Economic Opportunity "and"Human
Development". The Ibrahim Index uses a number of different variables to
compile its ranking, which reflects the state of governments in Africa.
Angola is also considered one of the most corrupt in the world by
Transparency International.
However, it also had some
breakthroughs. Apparently inspired by popular uprisings in different
Arab countries, initiatives were taken between February and March 2011
to organize demonstrations of protest against the regime via the
Internet in Luanda. A new demonstration, targeting in particular the
person of the president, took place in early September 2011. In 2019,
homosexuality was decriminalized, and the government also banned
discrimination based on sexual orientation. The vote was overwhelming:
155 for, 1 against, 7 abstentions.
Until the 1970s, Angola's economy was predominantly
agricultural, with coffee being its main crop. It was followed by
sugarcane, sisal, corn, coconut oil and peanuts. Among the cash crops,
cotton, tobacco and rubber stood out. The production of potatoes, rice,
cocoa and bananas was relatively important. The largest herds were
cattle, goats and pigs.
Angola is rich in minerals, especially
diamonds, oil and iron ore; it also has deposits of copper, manganese,
phosphates, salt, mica, lead, tin, gold, silver and platinum. The
diamond mines are located near Dundo in Luanda district. Important oil
deposits were discovered in 1966, off Cabinda, and later off the coast
to Luanda, making Angola one of the important oil producing countries,
with economic development enabled and dominated by this activity. In
1975 uranium deposits were located near the border with Namibia.
The main industries of the territory are the processing of oilseeds,
cereals, meat, cotton and tobacco. It is also worth mentioning the
production of sugar, beer, cement and wood, in addition to oil refining.
Industries include tires, fertilizers, pulp, glass, and steel. The
factory park is powered by five hydroelectric plants, which have an
energy potential exceeding consumption.
The railway system of
Angola consists of five lines that connect the coast to the interior.
The most important of these is the Benguela Railway, which connects to
the Katanga lines on the border with Zaire. The road network, mostly
consisting of second-class roads, connects the main cities. The busiest
ports are those of Luanda, Lobito, Soyo, Namibe and Cabinda. Luanda
airport is the hub of airlines that connect the country with other
African, European and American cities.
A serious structural
problem of the Angolan economy is the very marked inequality between the
different regions, partly caused by the protracted civil war. The most
telling fact is the concentration of about a third of economic activity
in Luanda and the contiguous province of Bengo, while in several areas
of the interior there are even regression processes.
An
increasingly salient feature of the Angolan economy is that a
substantial part of private investment, made possible by an exorbitant
accumulation in the hands of a small fringe of society (see below), is
channelled out of the country. For now, Portugal is the preferred target
of these investments, which takes place in banking, energy,
telecommunications and media, but also in wine and fruit growing, in
real estate, as well as in tourist developments.
Angola has made
several investments and bets in the training of new entrepreneurs and in
the creation of new businesses and subsequent jobs, as well as in the
formulation of partnerships with other countries, leading the PALOPs
Business Conference, always maintaining a mutually beneficial
relationship with Portugal — whose exports from Angola to this totaled
1,127 000 million euros, in the first four months of 2013. Investments
in Angola are also on the rise by countries outside the lusophone area:
according to ANIP (National Association of private investment)
investment in Angola has been growing and very marked.
The
benefits of Angola's economic growth reach quite unevenly to the
population. The rapid enrichment of a social segment linked to the
holders of political, administrative and military power is visible. A
range of" middle classes " are forming in cities where more than 50% of
the population is concentrated. In the country, a large part of the
population lives in conditions of relative poverty, with large
differences between cities and the countryside: a survey carried out in
2008 by the National Statistics Institute indicates that 37% of the
Angolan population lives below the poverty line, especially in rural
areas (the poverty rate is 58.3%, while that of the urban environment is
19%). In cities, most families, in addition to those classified as poor,
are committed to survival strategies. In urban areas, social
inequalities are also more evident, especially in Luanda.
The
advent of military peace in 2002 allowed a differentiated assessment of
the extremely complex economic and social problems facing the country,
but also of the range of possibilities that opened up. The indicators
available to date indicate that the logic of political economy, followed
since the 1980s and most manifestly in the 2000s, has led to remarkable
economic growth, in global terms, but at the same time has maintained
and accentuated serious distortions, in social as well as economic
terms.
It should be noted that, in the lists of the Human
Development Index prepared by the UN, Angola always occupies a place
among the most poorly placed countries.
In June 2014, Brazil
announced that it supports Angola's candidacy for non-permanent
membership in the UN Security Council. According to Brazilian President
Dilma Rousseff, " Angola will be able to offer a careful look and
balanced alternatives to the current challenges of international peace
and security."
With a stock of assets corresponding to 70 000
million US$, (6,8 billion Kz), Angola is today the third largest
financial market in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassed only by Nigeria and
South Africa. According to Angolan economy minister Abraão Gourgel, the
country's financial market has grown modestly since 2002 and today ranks
third in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2013 Angola was the African
country that made the most investments abroad, especially in Portugal,
revealed a report by the United Nations Conference on trade and
development. The fact that Angola has assumed itself as an issuer of
foreign direct investment is particularly surprising, given the large
volume of investments that the country has received in recent years,
mainly in oil and natural gas exploration, as well as road and rail
infrastructure.
Globally, Sub-Saharan African countries have been
making significant improvements in people's well-being, according to a
report by the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative in conjunction
with the Boston Consulting Group. Angola has invested in improving
critical infrastructure, an investment made possible by development
funds from oil. According to the same report, just 10 years after the
Civil War, living standards in Angola have surprisingly improved.
Average life expectancy increased from 46 years in 2002 to 51 in 2011.
Infant mortality rates have decreased from 25% in 2001 to 19% in 2010
and the number of pupils in primary schools has tripled since 2001.
However, the economic and social inequalities that have been a
characteristic of the country have not diminished, but in many respects
even accentuated.
The IMF forecasts that real Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) growth will reach 3.9% in 2014. The fund thus excludes the
possibility of granting new loans to the Angolan economy in the short
term, as this reflects “significant improvements” in the macroeconomic
environment and in the management and transparency of national accounts.
In August 2014, the financial rating agency Moody's released a note to
the markets in which it predicted a growth of the Angolan economy of
7.8% in 2014. On December 19, 2014, the Angolan capital market operator,
the Angolan debt and Securities Exchange (BODIVA), was launched. The
operator initially received the secondary public debt market, with the
start of the corporate debt market in 2018 and the stock market in 2022.
Research in 2007 concluded that having a small or
deficient amount of niacin was common in Angola. Angola is located in
the yellow fever endemic zone. As of 2004, the ratio of physicians to
population was estimated at 7.7 per 100,000 people. In 2005, life
expectancy was estimated at only 38.43 years, one of the lowest in the
world.
Infant mortality in 2005 was estimated at 187.49 per 1,000
live births, the highest in the world. The incidence of tuberculosis in
1999 was 271 per 100 000 people. Immunization rates of one-year-old
children in 1999 were estimated at 22% for tetanus, diphtheria and
whooping cough and 46% for measles. Malnutrition has affected about 53%
of children under five years of age since 1999. Between 1975 and 1992,
there were 300,000 deaths related to the civil War. The overall death
rate was estimated at 24 per 1000 in 2002. Although it remains among the
countries with the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality
rates in the world, since 2002 life expectancy in Angola has gone from
47 to 51 years and infant mortality has decreased from 250 to 195 in a
thousand.
The prevalence of HIV / AIDS was 3.90 per 100 adults in
2003. In 2004, there were approximately 240,000 people living with
HIV/AIDS in the country. There were an estimated 21,000 AIDS deaths in
2003. In 2000, 38% of the population had access to Safe Drinking Water
and 44% had adequate sanitation.
In September 2014, the Angolan
Institute for Cancer Control (IACC) was created by presidential decree,
which will be part of the Angolan National Health Service. An
oncological institute that will assume itself as a reference institution
in the central and southern regions of Africa. The purpose of this new
center is to ensure medical and Drug care in oncology, the
implementation of national prevention policies, programs and plans, as
well as specialized treatment.
In 2014, Angola launched a
national measles vaccination campaign, extended to all children under
the age of 10 and which aims to cover all 18 provinces of the country.
The measure is part of the Strategic Plan for the elimination of measles
2014-2020 prepared by the Angolan Ministry of Health and provides for
the reinforcement of routine vaccination and correct handling of measles
cases, national campaigns, the introduction of the second dose of
vaccination against the disease in the National routine vaccination
calendar and active epidemiological surveillance of measles. This
campaign ran in parallel with a polio vaccination campaign and the
administration of vitamin A.
Soon after the independence of the country, one of the
priorities was to expand the teaching and to instill in it a new spirit.
In this sense, not only the existing human and material resources in
Angola were mobilized, but an agreement was concluded with Cuba that
provided for an intense collaboration of this country in the education
sector (as, by the way, also in health). This collaboration, of
remarkable effectiveness, lasted 15 years, and enabled significant
advances in terms of not only covering the territory but also improving
the quality of teachers and their teaching.
Despite these
advances, the situation remains unsatisfactory to this day. While in
law, education in Angola is compulsory and free until the age of eight,
the government reports that a significant percentage of children are not
enrolled in schools because of the lack of schools and teachers.
Students are normally responsible for paying additional school-related
expenses, including books and food. The disparities in youth enrolment
between rural and urban areas remain significant. In 1995, 71.2% of
children between the ages of 7 and 14 were enrolled in school. It is
reported that a higher percentage of boys are enrolled in school than
girls. During the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002), approximately half of
all schools were looted and destroyed, leading the country to its
current problems with school shortages. The Minister of Education hired
20,000 new teachers in 2005 and continues to implement teacher training.
Teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained, and overworked
(sometimes teaching for two or three shifts a day). Teachers also
reported bribery directly from their students. Other factors such as the
presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity documents and poor
health also deter children from attending school regularly. Although
resources allocated to education grew in 2004, Angola's education system
continues to receive far less than necessary resources. The literacy
rate is very low, with 67.4% of the population over the age of 15 able
to read and write Portuguese. In 2001, 82.9% of men and 54.2% of women
were literate. Since independence from Portugal in 1975, a considerable
amount of Angolan students have continued to go every year to
Portuguese, Brazilian, Russian and Cuban schools, polytechnics and
universities through bilateral agreements.
On the other hand,
there has been remarkable growth in higher education. The public
Agostinho Neto university, heir to the embryonic" University of Luanda "
of colonial times, once had about 40 faculties spread throughout the
country; in 2009 it was dismembered, continuing to exist as such only in
Luanda and the province of Bengo, while six autonomous universities were
constituted, from the existing faculties, each dedicated to cover
certain provinces, including by the system of Poles in other cities: in
Benguela the Katyavala Bwila University, in Cabinda the 11 de Novembro
University, in Huambo the José Eduardo dos Santos University, in Lubango
the Mandume ya Ndemufayo University, in Malanje (with Saurimo lueji
a'nkonde university. Since independence, the Catholic University of
Angola has existed in Luanda. From the 1990s, a whole series of private
universities were founded, some linked to Portuguese universities such
as the Jean Piaget University of Angola, the Lusophone University of
Angola, the Lusíada University of Angola, and the Angola Business School
(All in Luanda), others resulting from Angolan initiatives: the Private
University of Angola with campuses in Luanda and Lubango, and in Luanda
also the Methodist University of Angola and the Technical University of
Angola, The Independent University of Angola, the Metropolitan
University of Angola, the Oscar Ribas University, the Gregório Semedo
University the University of Belas as well as the Higher Institute of
Social Sciences and International Relations. All these establishments
struggle, to a greater and lesser degree, with quality problems, and in
Luanda some begin to have demand problems.
In September 2014, the
Angolan Ministry of Education announced that it would make an investment
of 16 million euros in the computerization of more than 300 classrooms
across the country. The project also includes the training of teachers
at the national level, "aiming at the introduction and use of new
information technologies in primary schools, reflecting the improvement
of the quality of Education".
The illiteracy rate in Angola is
30%.
Roads deteriorate due to armed conflict. The railway
network in Angola consists of three lines in the east-west direction.
The main network is that of the center of the country that connects
between the Port of Lobito and the border of the Congo, where it
connects with the network of this country. The other lines are those of
Moçâmedes and Luanda. The country has a railway network of 2 852 km.
Luanda has an international airport, which is the main gateway for
international traffic. Angola maintains several links with countries in
Africa, America and Europe. The domestic flight network maintains
several connections with each other and there are more than 176 airports
in Angola, 31 of which have paved runways. Ten airlines operate in the
country and carry about 1.2 million people every year.
Angola has
three main ports, which are located on the West Coast and are the
forehead of the country's three main railway networks: the Port of
Luanda, the Port of Lobito and the Port of Moçâmedes. In addition to
these there are also the ports of Soyo, Cabinda (in expansion works) and
Amboim-Cuanza Sul.
The telecommunications sector is considered one of the
strategic areas in Angola. In October 2014, the construction of the
first submarine fiber optic cable in the Southern Hemisphere was
announced. The project aims to connect the cities of Luanda (Angola) and
Fortaleza (Brazil), allowing a more direct connection between the 2
continents. This initiative aims to make Angola a hub of the continent,
improving the quality of Internet connections at national and
international level.
The first Angolan artificial satellite
called AngoSat-1, was launched on December 26, 2017 at around 20h WAT,
with the forecast to enter orbit eight hours later, that is, around 4h00
WAT on December 27, 2017, and will ensure telecommunications throughout
the national territory and beyond. According to Aristides Safeca,
Secretary of State for telecommunications, the satellite will provide
telecommunications, television, internet and e-government services, and
should remain in orbit “in the best case” for 18 years.
The
management of the '.ao ' domain, related to Internet pages, passed from
Portugal to Angola in 2015, following the approval of new legislation by
the Angolan government. The Joint Order of the minister of
Telecommunications and Information Technologies, José Carvalho da Rocha,
and the minister of Science and Technology, Maria Cândida Pereira
Teixeira, states that “within the scope of the massification” of that
Angolan domain “the conditions are created for the transfer of the root
of the '.ao' domain from Portugal to Angola”.
Angolan culture is on the one hand tributary of the ethnic groups that have been constituted in the country for centuries, mainly the ovimbundos, ambundos, congos, chócues and ovambo. On the other hand, Portugal was present in the Luanda region and later also in Benguela from the sixteenth century, occupying the territory corresponding to today's Angola during the nineteenth century and maintaining control of the region until 1975. This presence resulted in strong cultural influences, starting with the introduction of the Portuguese language and Christianity. This influence is particularly noticeable in cities where more than half of the population now lives. In the slow process of forming a comprehensive and cohesive society in Angola, which continues to this day, there are very diverse cultural "ingredients", in constellations that vary from region to region.
The literature of Angola was born before the independence of Angola in 1975, but the project of a fiction that conferred to the African man the status of sovereignty appears around 1950 generating the movement New intellectuals of Angola.
In the country, dance distinguishes several genres,
meanings, forms and contexts, balancing the recreational aspect with its
condition as a vehicle for religious communication, healing, ritual and
even social intervention. Not restricted to the traditional and popular
scope, it is also manifested through academic and contemporary
languages. The constant presence of dance in everyday life is the
product of an appealing cultural context for the interiorization of
rhythmic structures from an early age. Starting with the close contact
of the child with the movements of the mother (on whose back she is
transported), this connection is strengthened through the participation
of young people in the different social celebrations (young people are
the ones who are most involved), where dance proves to be decisive as a
factor of integration and preservation of identity and community
feeling.
After several centuries of Portuguese colonization,
Angola also ended up suffering mixtures with other cultures currently
present in Brazil, Mozambique and Cape Verde. With this, Angola today
stands out for the most diverse musical styles, having as main ones: the
Semba, the Kuduro, the kizomba and the Rivita. In 2014, the Casa da
Música de Talatona was inaugurated in the province of Luanda, a space
for the promotion and dissemination of Angolan music, privileging semba
as a way to contribute to its preservation, dissemination and
perpetuation.
Basketball is the most popular sport in Angola. His
national team has won the Afrobasket 11 times and holds the record for
the most titles. As a top team in Africa, it is a regular competitor at
the Summer Olympics and the FIBA World Cup.
In football, Angola
hosted the 2010 African Cup of Nations. The national team qualified for
the 2006 FIFA World Cup in its first appearance at the finals of a World
Cup. They were eliminated after one loss and two draws in the group
stage. They won three COSAFA Cups and went to the final of the 2011
Africa Cup of Nations.
The country has also appeared at the
Summer Olympics for seven years and both compete regularly and once
hosted the FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup, where the best result is sixth.
Angola is also believed to have historical roots in the martial arts
"Capoeira Angola" and "Batuque", practiced by enslaved African Angolans
transported as part of the Atlantic slave trade.
Some of the typical festivals of Angola are:
Festas
Do Mar: these traditional festivals called Festas Do Mar, take place in
the city of Namibe. These festivals come from an ancient tradition with
a cultural, recreational and sporting character. They are usually held
in the summer season and it is customary to have exhibitions of products
related to agriculture, fisheries, construction, oil and agro-livestock;
Carnival: the main parade takes place on Avenida da marginal de Luanda.
Several Carnival Corsicans, allegorical Corsicans parade in one of the
main avenues of Luanda and Benguela;
Fruit festivals: held between
summer and early autumn, they symbolize the joy of a plentiful crop at
harvest time. The focus of the festival changes according to the region,
e.g. Grape Festival to the northwest, Festa. From Purple Manjuba to the
South;
Festivals of Our Lady of Muxima: the sanctuary of Muxima is
located in the municipality of Quissama, province of Bengo and
throughout the year receives thousands of faithful. It is a very popular
festival that takes place every year and that inevitably attracts
numerous tourists, due to its religious characteristics.
In 2014,
Angola resumed holding the National Festival of Culture (FENACULT),
after 25 years of interregnum. The festival took place in all provincial
capitals of the country between August 30 and September 20 and had as
its theme "Culture as a Factor of peace and development".