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As Angola Rebuilds, Most Find Their Poverty Persists
Real estate news By Sharon Lafraniere
October 14, 2007
Two years ago, only the brave or desperate would attempt the 186-mile drive from this garbage-strewn capital to the northern provincial capital, Uige. It was a 12-hour, teeth-clenching, hair-raising ordeal of dodging tire-blowing potholes and edges of roadway that crumbled into precipices. Now, thanks to Angola’s surging oil production, the journey takes half the time. And that is not all that is being transformed: All over Angola, hundreds of workers are rebuilding roads, airports, bridges and railways that were shattered during nearly three decades of civil war.
For most Angolans, the drone of road graders and steam shovels is the first tangible evidence of a dividend from their country’s oil and diamond wealth, mined in earnest now after five years of peace. Many call it long past due. Angola is gushing oil, pumping about 2 million barrels a day, more than any other African country except Nigeria. The International Monetary Fund projects a 24 percent economic growth this year one of the fastest rates in the world. The government is taking in two and a half times as much money as it did three years ago.
But Angolans, by many indications, remain as poor as ever. The poverty rate is a matter of debate: the government claims a 12 percent drop in the past five years; analysts for the Catholic University of Angola’s research center say two in three Angolans still live on $2 or less a day, the same percentage as in 2002. Still, no one disputes that most Angolans face appalling living conditions, sky-high infant mortality rates, dirty water, illiteracy and a host of other ills. The United Nations ranked Angola last year as the world’s 17th least developed country. In a December poll by a pro-democracy group and the United States Agency for International Development, 6 in 10 Angolans said their economic situation was no better now than five years ago.
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