Lack of development in rural areas hampers repatriation

The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, says the Angolan government will not be able to successfully repatriate hundreds of thousands of former refugees until it invests more in the economic development of rural areas. "There needs to be a strategy of decentralisation to stop people [from crowding into] ... the capital," said the UNHCR head in Angola, Enrique Valles, in an interview with IRIN in the capital, Luanda. "The government needs to create micro-regions of economic development with three main components - health, education and income generation - so that it's attractive to people to come back." While he acknowledged the lack of economic development in many parts of Angola, he added, "But we are creating the conditions, so the government must then mobilise its internal resources: oil and diamonds." Although Angola is one of the continent's richest countries in terms of natural resources, its people are among the poorest, with allegations of corruption and mismanagement levelled at the leadership. His plea comes hot on the heels of a watershed meeting between UNHCR and the Angolan government on 28 March, where detailed profiles of the seven areas with the highest percentage of former refugees were unveiled, to ensure the reintegration of half a million Angolans who fled their country during 27 years of war and five million internally displaced people. Valles cited lack of investment in the interior as a major reason for the continued isolation of many displaced communities. In a comment hinting that international NGOs often preferred to operate in places that were relatively well-connected, Valles said: "There is no-one in these municipalities at the moment except UNHCR and the churches - both Catholic and evangelical. Others [NGOs] are going to Benguela [in western Angola] or Planalto [central highlands] because the transport is better - but it is these areas that are really vulnerable." Since peace returned in 2002 more than 360,000 Angolans are estimated to have come home, including 123,000 brought by UNHCR, 89,000 with UNHCR assistance and a further 149,000 who returned without any UN help. The refugee agency plans to repatriate another 12,000 Angolans from Zambia this year. The Sustainable Reintegration Initiative, run by UNHCR and the government, aims to lure Angolan refugees back from exile and ensure they are successfully reintegrated into a country some of them left decades ago. In the municipality of Luau, once the capital of Moxico province, near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 91 percent of the population are former refugees. According to Valles, "There needs to be investment from the World Bank and the United Nations ... [because] it is necessary to support local markets. The main priority is agriculture, and the government should work with the [UN-based] Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to start local economic development." He said UNHCR was prepared to handle any further influx of refugees fleeing from continuing political instability in the DRC, which is to hold its first election since 1960 in June. "We are prepared for an influx. There are no indicators for concern at the moment, but we do have the capacity here for a quick reaction, in case." In a separate development, Angola's Minister for Assistance and Social Reinsertion, Joao Baptista Kussumua, said yesterday that Angola's landmines could be neutralised by 2007. "This would act as a guarantee; it would consolidate the process of reconstruction of infrastructure and economic development," he told the state-run daily, Jornal de Angola, in an interview.