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Washington, D.C., April 2, 2007 - 2002 will be forever written in the Angolan history as the year of Peace. This is without any doubt one of the most important dates on the Angolan political calendar.
Angola’s almost three-decade civil war ended on April 4, 2002, with the signing of the Luena Memorandum of Understanding between the Government and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
The end of the war turned a new chapter in the country’s history, opening up renewed prospects for tackling Angola’s problems and providing opportunities for achieving the nation’s developmental goals.
Since peace was achieved, the Angolan government, under the leadership of President José Eduardo dos Santos, has been carrying out a number of activities aimed at rebuilding the main infrastructure destroyed by the war, combating poverty, stepping up the provision of basic social services to the population, resettling the internally displaced population, and revamping the economy. The results have been encouraging.
The economic sector reached 11% growth in 2004, 20,6% in 2005, and an estimated 27% growth was expected in 2006, making the country’s one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The Government is involved in diversifying the economy to allow non-mining sectors to be more expressive and have equal opportunity to contribute toward creating more jobs countrywide.
The Government has been working aggressively for the 2008 legislative and 2009 presidential elections. The National Electoral Commission estimates that approximately 3,000,000 voters have already registered for the upcoming elections.
With regard to the bilateral relations between Angola and the United States, working missions consisting of Government officials from both countries have been undertaken to Luanda and Washington, D.C. over the last five years. 6 new Boeing aircraft have been purchased by the Angolan Airlines Company, TAAG, in order to renew its air fleet, while the Republic of Angola has been included in the President Bush’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). These are just a few achievements showing that bilateral relations have grown stronger since they were first established in May 1993.
While the war has unquestionably been the single most important factor constraining development, the newly achieved peace environment also brings in various challenges of its own. However, the Angolan government has been making efforts to confront those challenges. These include implementing peace-building measures aimed at promoting national reconciliation and economic recovery and improvement through policy reforms in addition to institutional measures to ensure sound resource management and allocation.
National reconciliation has allowed the implementation of new policies that promote social inclusion in an effort to ensure that every Angolan citizen, irrespective of their ethnic or geographic origin or political affiliation feels that they also have a stake in the post-conflict Angola, enjoy equal treatment, and face no discrimination of any kind. To this end, Government has enforced the rule of law and has promoted the protection of human rights throughout the country.
A major demobilization program has been implemented to adjust the number of troops to a level conforming to the national defense needs in a context of peace. Included in the program is the channeling of resources toward socio-economic development, while assisting in the smooth reintegration of former soldiers into civilian life.
In the course of the last 5 years, the Angolan government worked to secure the return of large numbers of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees to their areas of origin, based on the principle of voluntary return. Mine clearing was another important dimension of the post-conflict strategy, aimed at facilitating the return of IDPs and refugees, reopening key roads to revive domestic trade, and supporting economic recovery.
While some measures are being implemented to assist specific population groups, lessons from post-conflict situations in other countries indicate that the most effective strategy will be one that promotes a broad-based process of socio-economic recovery. This strategy is intent on improving the lives of the poor and rebuilding communities, thus creating favorably conditions for the successful reintegration of demobilized soldiers and return of IDPs and refugees.
The government poverty reduction strategy does not only require high rates of economic growth, but also appropriate measures to halt and reverse the trend towards increased inequality in income distribution. Large-scale job creation remains the key requirement for urban poverty reduction, and the country’s current situation shows encouraging results. Sustainable employment generation derive from broad-based economic development well beyond the oil sector, which currently provides great numbers of direct jobs.
Various public works programs designed to rebuild the country’s shattered infrastructure are also contributing to sustainable employment. In addition, efforts are being made to stimulate micro-business activities – mostly located in the so-called informal sector, one of the main sources of urban employment and income generation. The programs include an improved access to micro-credit and quality education, training, and apprenticeship schemes. Micro-credit embeds opportunities for small-scale savings by the population, as well as measures intended to ensure that urban residents get legal titles for their land and homes. These, in turn, are expected to serve as the means to guarantee loans and leverage capital.
One of the main challenges of the post-conflict period is the development of rural communities and the re-launch of the rural economic, following years of disruption in agriculture and rural trade, destruction and decay of rural infrastructure, loss of capital by and displacement of rural populations.
Government’s rural recovery strategy focuses mainly on the development of the small property owner sector, where rising production makes the greatest contribution to reducing rural poverty, while also making better use of available resources and increasing output from large-scale commercial farms.
The Government of the Republic of Angola recognizes that a prosperous small property-owned rural economy tends to reduce the “push” factors inducing migration to the cities. High priority is given to policies aimed for rural development in order to reduce rural-urban migration rates.
The end of the war has removed the main obstacle to the recovery of the non-oil sectors of the economy, compounded by other measures designed to improve the investment and job-creation environment.
Although access to basic social services depends in part on household income, the 2001-2015 Education for All Plan of Action provides a basic strategic framework for achieving key educational goals, including universal primary education. In the health sector, the Sanitation Development Plan and the National Health Policy were successfully concluded, setting the policy framework, priorities, and objectives for a sector-wide strategy.
Strong Government commitment in allocating larger budgetary resources than in the past is a positive sign.
Opportunities now opening up for Angola are the best the country has ever known since independence. Not only is there a real chance for a sustainable peace, but also the opportunity to use the country’s large oil revenues to promote the post-conflict recovery and make rapid progress towards meeting international development goals.
The Government’s primary responsibility is to lead the reconstruction and development process. To address the challenges facing the country, Government is strengthening the capacity of its key institutions. While the Government is aware that capacity is a key factor determining the pace of progress, it is also mindful of the important role of political will and commitment in confronting shortcomings in the area of rights and its underlying causes in order to move decisively toward achieving the goals already goals.
Press Office
Tel. 202 785 1156
Embassy of Angola
Washington, D.C., USA
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