Luanda likely to fair badly at an African peer review, says analyst

If Angola were subject to a peer review today, it would perform badly on a number of counts, particularly its non-existent electoral preparations and dismal social standards, according to a New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) analyst. "While all countries are not expected to reach the same base-level of review ... Angola would fare very poorly on the political governance scale, and on the economic management scale, and probably abysmally in terms of social and economic delivery and poverty alleviation issues," said Ayesha Kajee, speaking on the sidelines of a recent NEPAD workshop in the capital, Luanda. Angola languishes at the bottom of almost every social development ranking. Figures from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) show that one child in four is likely to die before their fifth birthday, life expectancy is 40 years, around half the population has no access to clean, safe drinking water, and almost 50 percent of Angola's children do not attend school. Preparing for Angola's elections is a key, near-term priority, according to Kajee, a NEPAD seminar manager and researcher, who is also involved in a governance project at the Johannesburg-based South African Institute of International Affairs. The current dallying over planning for a national ballot, which the government has said will take place in 2006, not only risked damaging Angola's standing in the peer review process, but could also embarrass the whole region. "It [Angola's ruling MPLA party] may think that this is one way to control the outcome of elections - if you don't prepare well in advance - but I believe it could well backfire," Kajee told IRIN. "If this election next year is not seen to have been well prepared for, or free and fair, it would reflect on Angola's, and even the region's, lack of political will to participate in the democratic process," she cautioned. Angola is not due to be reviewed until late next year, or even early 2007, by the African Peer Review Mechanism - a process in which countries are voluntarily assessed by teams of African experts on issues ranging from political and economic governance to social development. Kajee, who met informally with some Angolan parliamentarians, urged them to take the opportunity to earn plaudits by readying for and conducting the national poll in a democratic manner. "If Angola wants to be taken seriously with regard to peer review and the level of governance in the country, parliamentarians will need to consider elections very carefully, because it would be one of the crucial issues which Angola - in its post-war, transitional-economy stage - would be judged on," she commented. Angola appeared to be "very unprepared" for elections, and was falling well short of Southern African Development Community standards, raising fears that the ballot - the first to be held in the southwest African country in more than a decade - could fall beyond 2006. "Certainly, delays could result; and delays, particularly in the first election coming out of a civil conflict, can be dangerous. They can lead to dissatisfaction, specifically on the part of groups in opposition and other political players," she pointed out. After Angola's last general election in 1992, the then rebel group and now opposition party, UNITA, refuted the results and resumed its war against the government. The brutal civil conflict finally ended in April 2002 and most observers believe peace is sustainable. However, Kajee warned that any form of political uncertainty could harm investment in the country, and be particularly damaging as Angola seeks to diversify its economy away from oil and diamonds. "Despite the fact that Angola has commodities that are of huge value on the international market, companies do not want to invest infrastructure, capital or resources in a situation that is likely to revert to conflict, or that is likely to be anything but politically stable and conducive to business," she noted. The vast majority of Angola's 13 million people still live in dire poverty, despite the country being sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer.