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Angola

In Angola, the rents from natural resources are in the hands of a political and economic elite. We research how the country's wealth can be distributed to the benefit of all its citizens.

Completed projects

Mar 2015 - Dec 2017

CEIC-CMI Angola Programme

Jan 2015 - Dec 2017

Inequality in Angola

Jan 2011 - Dec 2014

Poverty and entrepreneurship

Feb 2008 - Dec 2010

Annual CEIC/CMI seminar

Jan 2008 - Dec 2010

Macro Model for Angola

Jan 2008 - Dec 2010

Political Parties in Angola

Jan 2008 - Dec 2010

ICT capacity

Mar 2007 - Dec 2008

Angola: Social Funds

Jan 2000 - Dec 2004

Review of UNDP in Angola

Jan 1999 - Jan 2001

Country specific aid reviews

Jan 2000 - Dec 2000

Review of UNDP in Angola

Inge Amundsen

Senior Researcher

Odd-Helge Fjeldstad

Research Professor, Coordinator: Tax and Public Finance

Jan Isaksen

Emeritus

Ivar Kolstad

Associated Research Professor

Ottar Mæstad

Research Professor / Special Adviser, Director Development Learning Lab

Aslak Jangård Orre

Senior Researcher

Ingrid Hoem Sjursen

Senior Researcher

Elin Skaar

Research Professor

Inge Tvedten

Emeritus

Arne Wiig

Research Professor

Economic growth and gross inequality

Angola is a country of great natural and cultural diversity. The country’s natural resource endowment is outstanding in Africa, and economic growth has accelerated since 2002 – yet most Angolans have never been able to reap its benefits. The fall in global oil prices since 2014 has aggravated the situation even further.

Angola’s human development indicators are persistently low more than a decade after the end of the civil war. Available information indicates that the maternity-related death rate and mother-child health statistics remain among the worst in the world. Poverty and its related complex of problems are widespread, and gross inequality is a chronic feature of the country’s social characteristics and visual appearance. Images of the “resource curse” or “the paradox of plenty” are often invoked when describing Angola.

Although Unita dominated and controlled large tracts of the land during much of the civil war, it was always the MPLA party, which kept power in Luanda since independence. President José Eduardo dos Santos has been in power since 1979. He has therefore overseen the transformation of Angola, from the early post-colonial days into a Cuban and Soviet-inspired one-party state and command economy, then into a multi-party system under a nominally liberal constitution with a free market capitalist ethos. Despite these dramatic changes, the power of the ruling party and the state-sector elites has been a constant.

CMI’s major involvement in Angola is a research collaboration programme between Centro de Estudos e Investigacao Cientifica (CEIC) at the Universidade Católica de Angola and CMI. It is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Other CMI research in Angola includes:

Both projects are funded by the Research Council of Norway.

The main current activity is a recent started up project funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: 

Enhancing the research environment in Angola through capacity development 2019-2024.