Funds needed for long-term survival of ex-soldiers

Despite the progress in reintegrating thousands of demobilised soldiers into Angolan society, concerns remain over the sustainability of current efforts, a senior World Bank (WB) official said on Thursday. The WB director in Angola, Lawrence Clark, told IRIN that the authorities were "on top" of the reintegration programme, but additional resources were needed to ensure that ex-combatants were able to sustain themselves in the long term. Since the end of Angola's civil war in 2002, the World Bank has made available US $33 million, directed at beefing up vocational skills and promoting microcredit schemes, to assist some 121,000 former fighters and their families. With the acute phase of the emergency - which took place immediately after the war - officially declared over, the World Bank was now expected to focus its attention on reconstruction efforts. "Both the authorities and the World Bank have acknowledged that more needs to be done in rebuilding the damaged infrastructure. The revival of the economy depends on a committed effort to rebuild roads and bridges, which are non-existent in some parts of the country," Clark said. He added that the Bank, in consultation with the authorities, was preparing an emergency reconstruction plan to address long-term development. Much of oil-rich Angola's infrastructure was destroyed during the 27-year conflict and the authorities have requested a donors' conference to help fund rebuilding of the country. But Clark pointed out that they would have to fulfil two conditions before a conference could be held. "The government must firstly produce a poverty reduction strategy paper and, secondly, an agreement [on economic reforms] with the IMF [International Monetary Fund] has to be found," he told IRIN. In the past the relationship between the IMF and the government has been clouded by concerns over coruption and transparency in the country's oil accounts. It is still unclear how much money would be needed to rebuild the country, but donors who met in Brussels in September 1995, under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme, promised over a billion dollars.