Poor still waiting for peace dividend to trickle down

Angola needs up to $30 billion to rebuild its war-shattered infrastructure over the next decade, according to a World Bank official, but analysts are warning the basic needs of the poor must not be overshadowed by large-scale projects. The Bank had earmarked a package of around $200 million for Angola, to be spent on reconstructing water and energy networks, roads, schools and hospitals in the next two years. But country representative Laurence Clarke said the oil-rich nation would have to rely on the private sector to fund the lion's share of its desperately-needed development. "The reconstruction needs of this country are enormous. As we all know the estimates for what is called the priority phase of reconstruction of Angola for 2003 to 2006 are two billion dollars," Clarke said. "If we go beyond 2006, say for the next 10 years, we're talking $15, $20, $30 billion which no institution like the Bank ... could finance and so it goes more to the private sector," he added. Angola is enjoying its third year of peace after a devastating 27-year civil war ended in April 2002. Despite the end of the conflict and massive oil reserves, the vast majority of the population of 13 million continues to live in dire poverty. Analysts said that while infrastructure was a top priority, the basic needs of the people should not fall by the wayside. Angola has among the world's worst social statistics and little formal sector employment, while a tiny elite enjoys fabulous levels of wealth. "These big infrastructure projects are obviously important for a country emerging from war," commented Nicholas Shaxson, associate fellow at the London-based Royal Institute for International Affairs. "But the problem is that it's tending to obscure the needs of the poor, especially in the provinces outside Luanda," he told IRIN during a visit to Luanda. Angola has a terrible track record on transparency and governance which puts it close to the bottom on most international ratings. Clarke said that securing more funding from donors would depend on it improving its performance. "Unfortunately Angola is among the weakest countries [in terms of World Bank ratings] at this point in time although over the last two to three years it has been improving steadily," he said. "There's still a long way for Angola to go in terms of how the world perceives it in the area of governance, the systems in place to ensure appropriate management of public resources, the management of the economy itself, the stability of the economy itself and the strength of the institutions managing the economy," he added. But as Angola's post-war economy - one of the fastest growing in the world - continued to flourish, the country would be less reliant on foreign aid, some foreign observers said. "Economic cooperation will definitely be the driving force for development in Angola," said Arild Oyen, ambassador of Norway in Luanda. "I am sure Angola will soon be a middle-income country. That has certain consequences on development assistance," he added. The southern African country has already attracted massive interest from foreign investors, not least with a massive $2 billion credit line from China which has already started being disbursed on key infrastructure projects. Some observers have criticised the oil-backed deal, saying the money will be spent on prestige projects, but Clarke said no-one could criticise Angola for trying to fund its needs as quickly as possible. "The reconstruction needs are very necessary, very immediate, very crucial ... Angola has got to get assets on the ground as quickly as possible because experience internationally has shown that for post conflict countries that if you don't do that in four or five years you have a tremendous risk of relapsing the conflict," he said. "From that standpoint, and given that we could not ourselves provide massive amounts of resources at this point, and that the private sector has not been coming as quickly as [hoped], we understand this very clearly in the bank," he added.