Angola

WHILE ANGOLA ENJOYS relative wealth on a national level as a result of its thriving oil and diamond industries, the percentage of the population living in poverty is astonishingly high. The chaos and destruction resulting from a colonial revolution that lasted from about 1961 to 1975 and a civil war that raged off and on from 1975 to 2002 have left Angola with a dire human rights situation.

The lack of a stable government over the past 30 years has led to reliance on disparate statistical information, but it is estimated that in Angola's urban sectors, in which 50 percent of the country's population reside, nearly 90 percent of individuals are living below the poverty line. If extrapolated, these statistics suggest that a vast majority of Angolans may be living in poverty at the beginning of the 21st century.

The prevailing cause of Angolan poverty has been the destabilization of society for nearly half a century during the wars for independence and governance. At the end of the civil war in 2002, four million Angolans were displaced either internally or externally. While this number made up 30 percent of the population at the time, it does little to demonstrate the debilitating role displacement has played in modern Angolan history.

Forced migration became a reality for Angola's predominantly rural population in 1961 when rebel groups began fighting separate battles against Portuguese colonial forces. In 1974–75, when Portugal relinquished control of Angola, almost all of the 330,000 Europeans living in Angola fled at the outbreak of civil war, leaving Angolan cities virtually vacant. Rural populations, whose safety was threatened by local conflicts, began flooding into cities. This trend of rural Angolans taking refuge in urban areas has been a major factor in the poverty crisis that affects Angola to this day.

It is impossible to calculate just how many Angolans have been displaced over the past 30 years, but what was a predominantly rural country in 1975 now has 50 percent of its population living in city centers. This constitutes a colossal demographic change, which has given rise to massive impoverishment. Today, rural regions are devastated by the effects of war, underpopulated, unequipped for agricultural renewal, cut off from markets, and lacking basic social services.

War refugees fleeing to urban centers have been a major factor in the poverty crisis that affects several nations in Africa.

In the urban environs, the influx of refugees has caused major overcrowding in areas unequipped to deal with the populations they were intended to hold. Lack of infrastructure has caused a gross shortage of clean water, waste collection, crime prevention, medical services, and most importantly food. Overcrowding has compounded these structural woes and created a crisis in urban Angola.

Since 2002, Angola has been governed under a peace treaty, with elections taking place in 2006. In the interim peacetime, the majority of internally displaced Angolans have returned home along with many of the refugees who fled to neighboring countries. The reintegration process, and with it the alleviation of mass poverty, is a lot more complicated than just returning citizens to their homes.

...