The Republic of Angola, formally known as Angola, is a nation located on Southern Africa’s west-central coast. It is the seventh-largest country in Africa and the second-largest Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) nation in terms of both total area and population. The Democratic Republic of the Congo borders it to the north, Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The province of Cabinda, an exclave of Angola, borders both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Luanda is the capital and most populated city.
Since the Paleolithic Era, people have lived in Angola. The Kingdom of Kongo, the dominant state among several other Kikongo-speaking kingdoms that existed in and after the 14th century, is where it got its start as a nation-state. By starting the Atlantic slave trade with the Portuguese Empire, the Kingdom of Kongo rose to great riches and power. In 1483, the first explorers made contact with Kongo, and thereafter, more migrants started constructing trading stations and coastal communities.
Kongo’s undiversified economic structure was seriously damaged when the slave trade was outlawed in the 19th century. In the interior, European settlers started to spread out over time. It took until the early 20th century for the Portuguese colony that would become Angola to reach its current borders. Native American tribes including the Kwanyama, the Mbunda, and the Cuamato had exhibited a strong resistance.
Angola became a one-party republic in 1975 following a lengthy anti-colonial war that lasted from 1961 to 1974. However, other movements continued to vie for dominance in the emerging country. The same year, the nation saw the start of a catastrophic civil war between the militant National Liberation Front of Angola, supported by Zaire, the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, originally a Maoist organization that later turned anti-communist with support from the United States and South Africa, and the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which was backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The MPLA continued to rule. After the civil war ended in 2002, Angola became a constitutional republic that was largely stable.
Finance
Angola has abundant petroleum and mineral resources. Particularly since the end of the American Civil War, its economy has grown at one of the quickest rates in the world. However, the country’s economic growth is incredibly unequal, with a disproportionately tiny section of the population owning the majority of the nation’s wealth. China, the European Union, and the United States are the main trading and investment partners.
The majority of people in Angola live in poverty; infant mortality is among the worst in the world and life expectancy is among the lowest. Fighting corruption has become the main priority of the João Lourenço government since 2017. As a result, a large number of former officials are either in jail or are awaiting prosecution. Although foreign ambassadors have acknowledged the legitimacy of this initiative, other critics believe it is being done for political reasons.
Angola is a part of the Southern African Development Community, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the African Union, and the United Nations. Angola’s population is projected to reach 37.2 million by 2023. Angola is a multiethnic and multicultural nation. Angolan culture is a blend of many indigenous practices and traditions mixed with centuries of Portuguese influence, most notably the Catholic Church and the Portuguese language’s domination.
Meaning and Origin
The Portuguese colonial term Reino de Angola, which means “Kingdom of Angola,” is where the word Angola originates. It first appears in Paulo Dias de Novais’s charter in 1571. The Portuguese took the toponym from the title Angola, which the monarchs of Ndongo and Matamba possessed. The highlands of Ndongo, situated between the Kwanza and Lucala rivers, were formally under the jurisdiction of the Kongo Kingdom. However, it was attempting to become more independent in the 16th century.
Past Events
Historical migrations and governmental entities
Before the initial Bantu migrations, the Khoi and San peoples were mostly nomadic and occupied modern-day Angola. Rather than engaging in pastoralism or agricultural production, the Khoi and San peoples lived as hunter-gatherers.
They were driven out in the first millennium BC by Bantu immigrants from the north, the majority of whom came from what is now southern Niger and northwest Nigeria. The cultivation of taro and bananas, together with the upkeep of sizable herds of cattle, were brought to Angola’s central highlands and the plain of Luanda by Bantu speakers.
The intermingling of pre-colonial tribes in Angola has been uncommon due to a variety of hindering topographical conditions throughout the country, including severely traversable topography, hot/humid temperatures, and myriad lethal illnesses.
Following the migrants’ arrival, several political entities emerged. The most well-known of these was the Angolan Kingdom of Kongo. It reached the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, and Gabon at its northernmost extent. It created trade routes around the western and southern African coasts, connecting it to other city-states and civilizations.
Even the Mutapa Empire and Great Zimbabwe were reached by its traders, despite the kingdom’s minimal or nonexistent transoceanic commerce. The region of the subsequent Portuguese colony was occasionally referred to as Dongo because of the Kingdom of Ndongo, which was located to its south. It was followed by the Kingdom of Matamba.
Later, the Kingdom of Kongo made the smaller Kingdom of Kakongo to the north its vassal. Kikongo was the common language spoken by the residents of each of these states.
Portuguese colonization
In 1484, Portuguese adventurer Diogo Cão arrived in the region. The Kingdom of Kongo, which at the time included what is now Gabon in the north and the Kwanza River in the south, was ties that the Portuguese had built the year before. With the exception of the Cabinda exclave, Soyo is currently the northernmost city in Angola and was the site of the Portuguese major early trade center.
In 1575, Paulo Dias de Novais established São Paulo de Loanda, often known as Luanda, with 400 troops and 100 settlers from families. Benguela became a township in 1617 after being fortified in 1587. The Kingdom of Kongo was an authoritarian kingdom that ruled over its neighboring states as vassals and was heavily centralized around its ruler. Its robust economy was driven by the production of salt, copper, ivory, skins, and, to a lesser degree, slaves. For the Kingdom of Kongo’s history, the change from a feudal system of enslavement to a capitalist one including Portugal would be pivotal.
Trade between the kingdoms expanded in tandem with the development of Kongo-Portugal relations in the early 16th century. A growing number of slaves were traded together with palm fabric, copper, and ivory, which made up the majority of commerce. Kongo had an internal slave market and exported very few slaves.
However, Kongo became a key supply of slaves for the island’s plantations and commerce once the Portuguese settled São Tomé and established a prosperous sugar colony. King Afonso’s correspondence records the buying and selling of slaves inside the nation. His reports also specify which slaves, taken prisoner during hostilities, were sold or delivered to Portuguese traders.
Throughout the 1540s, Afonso kept enlarging the kingdom of Kongo, extending its boundaries to the east and south. Afonso’s previous religious reforms and Kongo’s population growth enabled the monarch to consolidate control in his capital and strengthen the monarchy. In addition, he created a royal monopoly on a portion of trade. Afonso and a number of other Portuguese rulers asserted a common monopoly on the foreign slave trade in order to control the expanding slave trade.
Slave trading became to be Kongo’s main, and maybe only, source of income. The fact that the only item that the European powers were ready to trade for was slaves posed a significant challenge for the Kingdom of Kongo. Kongo did not have a functioning foreign exchange. Nobles from Kongo could purchase slaves with nzimbu shells, the national money that could be exchanged for slaves. You may sell these to get foreign money.
Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the Kongo economy was unable to expand or subsequently industrialize outside of industries that entailed slavery, such as the weapons trade, since the slave trade was the only product that Europeans were interested in purchasing in the region.
The main problem of the slave trade, which had descended into a more violent conflict, was the reason for the kingdom’s increased manufacturing and sale of firearms. The kings and queens were always in need of slaves to trade for foreign goods, for without them they would be unable to influence any European nations, including Portugal and later the Dutch Republic.
The Kongolese rulers need this clout to persuade European powers to back them in suppressing domestic uprisings. Even though Portugal was Kongo’s main partner in the slave trade, the situation grew more problematic under Garcia II’s reign. He required the help of the Dutch soldiers to expel the Portuguese from Luanda.
The number of foreign slaves that the Kongolese were capturing from outside was decreasing by the early 17th century. When freeborn Kongolese residents committed relatively minor offenses, such as disrespecting the aristocracy or the authoritarian regime, the government started to permit their slavery.
When many people were found guilty of a crime, it was not uncommon for the entire town to be sold into slavery. Garcia II’s reign was followed by his son António I’s, which was marked by turmoil and internal strife. At the Battle of Mbwila in 1665, he and a sizable section of the nobility were slain by the Portuguese. The colonists were growing more dominant.
With António I’s passing, the Kingdom of Kongo saw a wider outbreak of warfare. The stability and availability of iron ore and charcoal, which were essential for gunsmiths to sustain the weapons business, were significantly disturbed. From that point on, practically every Kongolese citizen faced the risk of becoming a slave during this time. A large number of skilled gunsmiths from Kongo were sold into slavery so that colonists in the New World might employ them as blacksmiths, ironworkers, and charcoal producers.
Along the Angolan coast, the Portuguese built a number of additional towns, forts, and trade stations. Their main business was the sale of Angolan slaves to plantation owners. The Portuguese Empire received a considerable supply of slaves from local slave traffickers, typically in return for European manufactured goods. This segment of the Atlantic slave trade persisted until the 1820s, following Brazil’s independence.
Portugal claimed territory in Angola, although it had very little influence over the overwhelming majority of the country’s interior. Portugal conquered the coast in the sixteenth century via a succession of treaties and battles. For European colonists, development was sluggish and life was hard.
John Iliffe points out that “Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; accompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill one-third or one-half of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a generation and forcing colonists back into the river valleys”.
The Dutch West India Company took control of Luanda, the main settlement during the Portuguese Restoration War, in 1641. They used their ties with the local populace to launch raids against Portuguese possessions abroad.
In 1648, a navy led by Salvador de Sá recaptured Luanda; the remaining area was retaken by 1650. In 1649, further treaties were formed with the Kongo, and in 1656, treaties with the Kingdom of Matamba and Ndongo, ruled by Njinga, were signed.
The last significant Portuguese advance from Luanda occurred with the capture of Pungo Andongo in 1671; efforts to conquer Kongo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 were unsuccessful. Benguela likewise saw the expansion of colonial outposts inside its borders; yet, until the late 1800s, Luanda and Benguela had very little influence.
Due to a string of political unrest in the early 1800s, Portugal was hesitant to acquire a significant portion of Angola.
Angola outlawed the slave trade in 1836, and the colonial government emancipated all of its enslaved citizens in 1854. Slavery was completely abolished four years later by a more progressive government that Portugal had selected.
To enforce its prohibition on the slave trade, the Portuguese had to rely on support from the British Royal Navy and the so-called Blockade of Africa. Nevertheless, these orders remained largely unenforceable. This was in line with several resumption of military bush missions.
Portugal had cemented its dominance by the middle of the nineteenth century, extending its reach as far north as the Congo River and as far south as Mossâmedes. Portugal considered plans to connect Angola with its territory in Mozambique until the late 1880s, but British and Belgian resistance prevented this from happening. During this time, the Portuguese encountered many types of violent resistance from different Angolan communities.
The borders of the colony and the limits of Portuguese claims in Angola were established during the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885, while many issues remained unresolved until the 1920s. Protective tariffs allowed trade between Portugal and its African holdings to grow quickly, which in turn sparked increased development and a tide of new Portuguese immigrants.
Hundreds of Mucubal people were slain as a result of Portuguese army operations against them between 1939 and 1943. The Mucubal were accused of insurrection and livestock theft. 3,529 people were taken prisoner during the campaign, 20% of whom were women and children, and were held in concentration camps. Numerous captives perished as a result of malnutrition, abuse, and forced work. Sending to Sao Tome and Principe were around 600. Additionally, hundreds were taken to a camp near Damba, where 26% perished.
Independence of Angola
Black Angolans were prohibited from organizing labor unions or political organizations under colonial rule. The first nationalist groups emerged following World War II, led by an urban class that spoke Portuguese and was predominantly Westernized, with a high number of mestiços. Other groups resulting from spontaneous labor activity in the rural workers joined them in the early 1960s.
An armed conflict emerged in 1961 with the Baixa de Cassanje insurrection and progressively developed into a lengthy war of independence that endured for the following twelve years due to Portugal’s failure to answer Angola’s growing aspirations for self-determination.
During the war between the Portuguese government and local forces, three militant nationalist groups with their own partisan guerrilla wings arose, with varied degrees of backing from the Portuguese Communist Party.
Refugees from Bakongo were recruited by the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) in Zaire. Thanks in part to a shared border with Zaire and exceptionally favorable political conditions in Léopoldville, Angolan political exiles established a stronghold amidst a sizable expat population made up of kinship ties, tribes, and customs.
People shared links to the former Kingdom of Kongo and spoke dialects that were understandable to each other on both sides of the border. While competent Angolans were not eligible to participate in Mobutu Sese Seko’s government employment program because they were foreigners, some were able to find jobs as intermediaries for the absentee owners of several profitable private businesses.
After a while, the migrants established the FNLA with the goal of running for political office when they ultimately returned to Angola.
Jonas Savimbi and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) led a mostly Ovimbundu guerrilla campaign against the Portuguese in central Angola starting in 1966. Its geographical isolation from friendly borders, the Ovimbundu’s ethnic division, and the isolation of peasants on European plantations, where they had little opportunity to organize, continued to be obstacles.
The development of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the Dembos hills north of Luanda and in the east during the late 1950s became particularly significant. The Angolan Communist Party founded the organization as a coalition resistance movement, and its leadership, which was predominately Ambundu, courted Luanda’s public sector employees.
While the MPLA and its opponents both took in material help from the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China, the former publicly criticized the US and its backing of Portugal and had strong anti-imperialist sentiments. By enlisting the aid of nonaligned governments in Morocco, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and the United Arab Republic, it was able to gain significant ground diplomatically.
In an attempt to forge a new front with the FNLA, then called as the Union of Angolan Peoples (UPA), and its leader Holden Roberto, the MPLA tried to relocate its headquarters from Conakry to Léopoldville in October 1961.
Roberto declined the invitation. Roberto ordered UPA fighters to ambush and kill MPLA members as they sought to send in their own rebels into Angola, laying the stage for the terrible factional warfare that would ultimately spark the Angolan Civil War.
Civil War in Angola
The three competing nationalist organizations faced significant obstacles in their battle for independence due to divisions within the military and politics, as well as their incapacity to coordinate guerrilla operations against the Portuguese.
The MPLA, UNITA, and FNLA fought it out for sway over the Angolan people and the world community between 1961 and 1975. Particularly supportive of the MPLA, the Soviet Union and Cuba gave the group money, equipment, training, and weapons. Additionally, they supported UNITA fighters up until it was evident that they couldn’t possibly reconcile with the MPLA.
Following the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Portugal’s Estado Novo government collapsed, terminating all military operations in Africa and mediating a truce while Angolan independence discussions were ongoing. In early January 1975, Holden Roberto, Jonas Savimbi, and MPLA chairman Agostinho Neto met in Mombasa, Kenya, with encouragement from the Organization of African Unity, and they decided to create a coalition government.
Later that month, the Alvor Agreement, which established the date of the nation’s independence on November 11, 1975, and called for general elections, affirmed this. But instead of abiding by the truce, all three factions expanded their militant troops, seized additional weapons, and took advantage of the Portuguese pullout gradually.
A fresh round of conflicts was sparked by the quick entry of weaponry from various external sources, particularly the US and the USSR, and the rise in tensions amongst the nationalist groups. The FNLA started amassing a sizable soldier force in northern Angola in an effort to achieve military supremacy, with the implicit assistance of the United States and Zairean.
In the meantime, the MPLA started taking over Luanda, a long-standing Ambundu bastion. In the months that followed the FNLA’s March 1975 attack on the MPLA’s political offices, Luanda saw sporadic bloodshed. Street battles in April and May heightened the violence, and UNITA got involved after an MPLA contingent slaughtered more than 200 of its members in June.
The Central Intelligence Agency decided to also give significant covert help to the FNLA and UNITA due to an increase in Soviet weaponry supplies to the MPLA.
The MPLA asked the Soviet Union for immediate support in the shape of ground forces in August 1975. The Soviets refused, saying they would only send advisors and not troops; Cuba, on the other hand, was more cooperative and sent about 500 combatants, together with advanced weapons and supplies, to Angola in late September.
There were more than a thousand Cuban troops in the nation at the time of independence. A vast airbridge operated by Soviet planes provided them with supplies. The MPLA was able to force out its opponents from Luanda and thwart a botched intervention by South African and Zairean soldiers who had deployed in a last-ditch effort to support the FNLA and UNITA thanks to the continuous augmentation of military help from Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Following the crucial Battle of Quifangondo, the FNLA was virtually destroyed, but UNITA was able to evacuate its militia and civil authorities from Luanda and take refuge in the southern provinces. Savimbi then proceeded to launch a resolute insurgency campaign against the MPLA.
The Marxist–Leninist one-party state and central planning were features of the economic and political structure that the MPLA imposed from 1975 and 1991. It was founded on the ideas of scientific socialism. It started an extensive nationalization drive and effectively eliminated the private sector in the country.
Private companies were nationalized and merged into Unidades Economicas Estatais (UEE), a unified group of state-owned companies. Angola underwent a considerable level of contemporary industrialization during the MPLA. But there was also a rise in bribery and corruption, and public funds were either mismanaged or openly pilfered by officials for their own financial gain.
The Maoist-leaning Communist Organisation of Angola (OCA) attempted a coup d’état in 1977, but it was put down after thousands of OCA sympathizers were killed in a series of brutal political purges. The governing party survived.
At its third-party conference in 1990, the MPLA announced social democracy to be its new platform, renunciating its previous Marxist philosophy. After that, Angola joined the International Monetary Fund and loosened market economy regulations in an effort to attract international investment.
It came to a peace accord with UNITA in May 1991, known as the Bicesse Accords, which set new general elections for September 1992. UNITA protested over the results of the presidential and parliamentary vote counts after the MPLA won a significant electoral win and went back to war. After the election, MPLA soldiers slaughtered hundreds of UNITA supporters during the Halloween massacre, which took place from October 30 to November 1.
The Twenty-First Century
Savimbi was murdered by government forces during a firefight in the province of Moxico on February 22, 2002. The Luena Memorandum of Understanding was approved in April by UNITA and the MPLA; UNITA also committed to giving up its armed wing. An MPLA-dominated dominant-party system with UNITA and the FNLA as opposition parties arose with the elections of 2008 and 2012.
Due to the extended struggle between the FLEC and the exclave of Cabinda, as well as the numerous minefields and ongoing political agitation in favor of the exclave’s independence, Angola is currently experiencing a significant humanitarian crisis. The majority of the internally displaced people have already set up camp surrounding the city, but the situation for Angolans in musseques, or shanty towns, is still dire.
The largest food crisis to hit Southern Africa in 25 years occurred in 2016 due to a drought that affected 1.4 million people in seven of Angola’s eighteen regions. Over 95,000 children were affected by the doubling of acute malnutrition rates and rising food prices.
In 2017, José Eduardo dos Santos, the 38-year president of Angola, resigned amicably, and João Lourenço, Santos’s preferred successor, took over as president.[59] Subsequently, several dos Santos family members were connected to significant degrees of corruption. José Eduardo dos Santos, the former president, passed away in Spain in July 2022.
August 2022 saw the MPLA, the reigning party, secure a second majority and a fifth five-year term for President Lourenço. But it was the closest election in Angola’s history.
Geographical
Angola is the twenty-second biggest nation in the world, with 1,246,700 km³ (481,400 sq mi); it is twice the size of France or Texas, and equivalent in size to Mali. It is generally located between longitudes 12° and 24°E and latitudes 4° and 18°S.
Angola shares borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the northeast, Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo borders the coastal exclave of Cabinda to the south and the Republic of the Congo to the north. Luanda, Lobito, Moçâmedes, and Porto Alexandre are the four natural harbors on Angola’s coastline, which makes it an advantageous place for marine commerce.
The traditional African coastline features deep bays and rugged cliffs, which contrast with these natural indentations. Luanda, the capital of Angola, is located in the northwest of the nation on the Atlantic coast.
With a mean score of 8.35/10 on the 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index, Angola was ranked 23rd out of 172 nations worldwide.
Temperature
Angola features distinct, alternating wet and dry seasons, just like the rest of tropical Africa. The rainy season in the north can extend up to seven months, often from September to April, with a possible short break in January or February. The rainy season in the south starts later, in November, and lasts until around February. The dense morning mist that commonly accompanies the dry season (cacimbo). Precipitation is generally higher in the north, although it is higher in the interior than near the coast at any latitude, and it rises with height. As one gets higher and further from the equator, temperatures tend to climb in the vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean.
As a result, the average annual temperature in Huambo, on the temperate central plateau, is below 16 °C, while it is around 26 °C at Soyo, at the mouth of the Congo River. In the midst of the dry season, July and August are the coldest months. At higher elevations, frost may occasionally occur during these months.
Wildlife
Finance
Angola is rich in wildlife (which was severely reduced during the civil war), forests, fossil fuels, gold, copper, oil, and diamonds. Oil and diamonds have been the primary economic resources since the country’s independence. During the Angolan Civil War, smallholder and plantation agriculture saw a sharp decline; but, in 2002, it started to rebound.
After a quarter of a century of civil conflict, Angola’s economy recovered in recent years, rising at one of the highest rates in the world and in Africa, with an average GDP growth of 20% between 2005 and 2007. Angola has the greatest yearly average GDP growth in the world between 2001 and 2010, growing by 11.1%.
A $2 billion line of credit was issued by the Exim Bank of China in 2004 with the purpose of reconstructing Angola’s infrastructure and reducing the IMF’s influence in that country.
China is Angola’s largest import and export market as well as one of its main trading partners. In 2011, bilateral commerce increased by 11.5% annually to $27.67 billion. China’s exports to Angola, which include building materials, equipment components, and mechanical and electrical items, climbed by 38.8%, while its imports, which are mostly comprised of crude oil and diamonds, increased by 9.1% to $24.89 billion. The local price of unleaded gasoline was £0.37 per gallon as a result of the oil glut.
The European Union was the largest import partner as of 2021, followed by China, Togo, the US, and Brazil. Angola sends more than half of its goods to China, with far less going to the United Arab Emirates, the European Union, and India.
The economy of Angola expanded by 18% in 2005, 26% in 2006, and 17.6% in 2007. 2009 saw an estimated −0.3% contraction in the economy as a result of the global recession. Four million displaced people have been resettled thanks to the security provided by the peace agreement of 2002, and this has led to a significant rise in agricultural output.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), substantial development in the non-oil economy—primarily due to strong performance in the agriculture sector—is likely to offset a temporary decline in oil output, with Angola’s GDP projected to increase by 3.9% in 2014.
The National Bank of Angola is in charge of overseeing the country’s financial system, which is overseen by Governor Jose de Lima Massano. In December 2013, the Angolan national bank, Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA), authorized a fall in the inflation rate, which was set at 7.96%.
This, according to Deloitte research on the banking industry, helped the sector’s development trend. According to central bank estimates, Angola’s economy is expected to expand at an average annual rate of 5% during the next four years, helped along by the growing involvement of the private sector. In 2023, Angola came in at position 132 on the Global Innovation Index.
Angola has enormous social and economic issues, despite the fact that its economy has expanded dramatically since the country attained political stability in 2002, mostly as a result of rapidly expanding oil industry profits. These are partially due to the nearly constant military struggle that began in 1961, but the greatest amount of destruction and socioeconomic harm occurred during the protracted civil war that followed the country’s independence in 1975.
On the other hand, widespread corruption, “neo-patrimonial” behaviors at all levels of the political, administrative, military, and economic organizations, and high rates of poverty are the main causes of stark social inequality and poverty. Power holders in politics, government, business, and the military stand to gain the most, as they have amassed and will continue to amass vast fortunes.
The middle classes that are on the verge of becoming social classes are known as “secondary beneficiaries”. Though there are notable disparities between the countryside and the metropolis, where just over 50% of the population lives, over half of the population must be classified as impoverished.
According to a 2008 research by the Angolan Instituto Nacional de Estatística, 37% of people must be categorized as “poor” overall, with 58% of people in rural regions and only 19% in urban areas meeting UN standards.
Most families in cities, far more than those who are officially labeled as impoverished, have to develop a range of survival skills. Social disparity is especially noticeable in metropolitan settings, and it is particularly severe in Luanda. Angola consistently has the lowest Human Development Index ranking.
The Luanda Leaks, a government document leak that occurred in January 2020, revealed that American consulting firms, including Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, had assisted members of the former president José Eduardo dos Santos’ family—particularly his daughter Isabel dos Santos—in running Sonangol corruptly for their own personal gain.
This involved assisting them in using the company’s profits to finance extravagant projects in France and Switzerland. Following more disclosures in the Pandora Papers, former presidential aides and generals Dias and do Nascimento were also charged with embezzling large sums of public money for their own gain.
A major structural issue for the Angolan economy is caused by the stark differences between the regions, as seen by the fact that the majority of economic activity is concentrated in Luanda and the neighboring province of Bengo, while several interior regions experience economic stagnation or even regression.
A notable economic impact of social and geographical inequalities is the notable rise in Angolan private investments outside. For financial and securityal reasons, the small segment of Angolan society where the majority of asset accumulation occurs aspires to distribute its holdings. For the time being, the majority of these investments are focused in Portugal, where Angolans (including the state president’s family) have become prominent players in banks, the energy, telecommunication, and mass media sectors, as well as in the purchase of orchards, vineyards, and tourism-related businesses.
Critical infrastructure in Angola has been updated, thanks to financial contributions from the nation’s oil resource development. In just a little over a decade following the end of the civil war, Angola’s level of living has reportedly significantly increased overall.
In 2002, the average lifespan was just 46 years; by 2011, it had risen to 51 years. Children’s mortality rates decreased from 25% in 2001 to 19% in 2010, while the proportion of children engaged in primary education has increased since 2001. But concurrently, the nation’s longstanding social and economic inequality has not lessened; on the contrary, it has become worse in every way.
Only Nigeria and South Africa currently have larger financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa than Angola, with assets totaling 70 billion Kz (US$6.8 billion). Abraão Gourgel, the Minister of Economy of Angola, claims that the nation’s financial market has grown moderately since 2002 and is currently ranked third in sub-Saharan Africa.
In Angola, the Capital Market opened for business on December 19, 2014. The secondary public debt market was given to BODIVA (Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives), which was also anticipated to start the corporate debt market by 2015. However, trading on the stock market itself was not planned to start until 2016.
Natural resources
According to a 2008 article in The Economist, oil and diamonds account for nearly all of Angola’s export earnings or 60% of the nation’s GDP. Rising oil production, which exceeded 1.4 million barrels per day (220,000 m3/d) in late 2005 and was predicted to reach 2 million barrels per day (320,000 m3/d) by 2007, is nearly solely responsible for the growth.
The Angolan government owns the corporation Sonangol Group, which combines control over the oil industry. Angola became a member of OPEC in December 2006. The nation produced 1.165 million barrels of oil on average per day in 2022, as reported by the National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANPG).
Angola is currently China’s largest oil supplier, according to the conservative American think tank Heritage Foundation, whose oil output has expanded dramatically in recent years. “China has extended three multi-billion dollar lines of credit to the Angolan government; two loans of $2 billion from China Exim Bank, one in 2004, the second in 2007, as well as one loan in 2005 of $2.9 billion from China International Fund Ltd.”
Growing oil profits also brought with them chances for corruption; a recent study from Human Rights Watch states that between 2007 and 2010, US$32 billion vanished from government coffers. Moreover, 51 percent of Cabinda’s oil is owned by the state-run oil corporation, Sonangol.
Because of this market power, the business ultimately decides how much taxation it must pay and how much profit the government receives. The World Bank reportedly stated that Sonangol is a taxpayer, engages in quasi-fiscal operations, invests public funds, and regulates the industry as a concessionaire, according to the Council on Foreign Affairs.
This diverse work program impairs the official budgeting process and casts doubt on the state’s true economic situation by generating conflicts of interest and defining a complicated relationship between Sonangol and the government.”
For the first time, Angola penalized a multinational company doing business in its seas when it claimed compensation in 2002 for oil leaks that were purportedly caused by Chevron Corporation.
Angola has more access to biocapacity than the global average. Angola’s biocapacity per person in its territory was 1.9 global hectares in 2016, which was somewhat higher than the worldwide average of 1.6 global hectares per person. Angola used 1.01 global hectares of biocapacity per person in 2016; this is their ecological footprint. This indicates that they utilize around half of Angola’s biocapacity. Angola is managing a biocapacity reserve as a result.
Agriculture
For the nation, there is promise in the fields of agriculture and forestry. “Angola requires 4.5 million tonnes of grain a year, but only grows about 55% of the maize it needs, 20% of the rice, and just 5% of its required wheat,” according to the African Economic Outlook group.
Angola was a significant exporter of bananas, coffee, and sisal before to gaining independence in 1975. However, three decades of civil conflict devastated the country’s lush countryside, left it covered in landmines, and forced millions of people into the cities. Currently, the nation is reliant on costly food imports, primarily from Portugal and South Africa, even though over 90% of farming is done at the family and subsistence levels. Poverty ensnared thousands of small-scale Angolan farmers.
Transport
Transport in Angola consists of:
- Three separate railway systems totaling 2,761 km (1,716 mi)
- 76,626 km (47,613 mi) of highway of which 19,156 km (11,903 mi) is paved
- 1,295 navigable inland waterways
- five major sea ports
- 243 airports, of which 32 are paved.
Five major ports in Angola are the hub of its port trade: Namibe, Lobito, Soyo, Cabinda, and Luanda. The biggest of the five ports and one of the busiest on the continent of Africa is Luanda.
Angola is crossed by two trans-African motorways: the Beira-Lobito Highway and the Tripoli-Cape Town Highway. In Angola, highway travel is often not recommended for anyone without four-by-four vehicles when it comes to towns and cities (and occasionally even within).
Although Angola has a fair amount of road infrastructure, time and war have worn down the surfaces, leaving many of the roads severely potholed and covered with broken asphalt. Though great attention must be made to the existence or lack of landmine warning markings along the side of the road, vehicles have often constructed alternate paths to avoid the worst portions of the surface. A large number of the nation’s highways are being restored under contract by the Angolan government.
The road between Lubango and Namibe, for example, was completed recently with funding from the European Union and is comparable to many European main routes. Completing the road infrastructure is likely to take some decades, but substantial efforts are already being made.
Culture
Portuguese culture, particularly in language and religion, as well as the cultures of Angola’s indigenous ethnic groups—mostly Bantu culture—have had a significant effect on Angolan culture.
To varying degrees, the various ethnic communities—the Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, Mbunda, and others—maintain their own cultural traits, customs, and languages; however, since colonial times—and especially since Luanda’s founding in the 16th century—a mixed culture has been emerging in the cities, where slightly over half of the population currently resides.
The Portuguese background is becoming increasingly prevalent in this metropolitan society. Portuguese is being shaped by African influences, which are audible in music and dance. The writing of modern Angola, particularly that of Angolan authors, effectively captures this dynamic.
After a 25-year hiatus, Angola revived the National Festival of Angolan Culture in 2014. The festival, with the theme “Culture as a Factor of Peace and Development,” was held over the course of 20 days in all of the provincial capitals.
Sports
In Angola, basketball is the second most popular sport. With 11 AfroBasket victories, the national team owns the record for most trophies. It often competes in the FIBA World Cup and the Summer Olympics as one of Africa’s best teams. One of the first competitive leagues in Africa is based in Angola. The only Angolan NBA player currently playing is Bruno Fernando of the Atlanta Hawks.
Angola hosted the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in football. For the first time, the Angolan national football team advanced to the World Cup finals in 2006 FIFA World Cup. After two draws and one loss in the group stage, they were out. They placed second in the 2011 African Nations Championship and won three COSAFA Cups.
For a number of years, Angola has taken part in the World Women’s Handball Championship. In addition, the nation routinely participates in and has hosted the FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup, where its highest finish is sixth. It has also participated in the Summer Olympics for seven years. The martial arts “Batuque” and “Capoeira Angola,” which were practiced by African Angolans who were carried as slaves across the Atlantic, are another popular theory about the origins of Angola.
