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How do you know you’re doing a good investment?* Capital Projects and Infrastructure
The PwC Capital Projects and Infrastructure team is your ideal partner for projects in this sector. It has vast experience from across Africa, providing advice and support to its clients at every stage of their projects, from inception to operation and maintenance.
A equipa da PwC, especializada em investimentos e infra-estruturas, é a parceira ideal para projectos neste sector. Tem uma vasta experiência em vários países de África, nos quais presta serviços de assessoria e suporte a diferentes clientes em todas as etapas dos seus projectos, desde a concepção até à execução e manutenção.
L’équipe PwC, spécialiste en financement de projets et infrastructures est le partenaire idéal pour vos missions dans ce secteur. PwC a une vaste expérience en pays africains, avec une offre de services multidisciplinaires pour accompagner toutes les étapes du processus, de la conception à l’exécution et manutention.
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Nos expertises: • stratégie; • planning; • financement • approvisionnement; • coordination et gestion du processus; • audit & governance; • optimisation.
Contacts / Contactos / Contacts: * Como sabe que está a fazer um bom investimento? Comment savez-vous que vous faites un bon investissement?
Pedro Calixto PwC Angola Senior Partner +244 227 286 109 pedro.calixto@ao.pwc.com
Carlos Moutinho PwC Angola Advisory Lead Partner +244 924 811 381 carlos.moutinho@ao.pwc.com
© PwC Angola 2015. All rights reserved. In this document “PwC” refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers (Angola) which is a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, each member firm of which is a separate legal entity.
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Contents
African Cities SPECIAL ISSUE N° 1 WWW.ICPUBLICATIONS.COM UNITED KINGDOM IC PUBLICATIONS 7 Coldbath Square London EC1R 4LQ Tel: +44 20 7841 3210 Fax: Admin +44 20 7713 7898 Editorial: +44 20 7841 3211 icpubs@icpublications.com www.africanbusinessmagazine. com FRANCE IC PUBLICATIONS 609 Bat A 77 rue Bayen 75017 Paris Tel: +33 1 44 30 81 00 Fax: +33 1 44 30 81 11 info@icpublications.com www.icpublications.com FOUNDER Afif Ben Yedder EDITOR Anver Versi a.versi@icpublications.com ART DIRECTOR Jason Venkatasamy jason@icpublications.com STRATEGIC DIRECTOR Christian Udechukwu ASSISTANT EDITOR Alexa Dalby a.dalby@icpublications.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Tom Nevin Gerard Choisnet Hichem Ben Yaïche Neil Ford CORRESPONDENT- AT-LARGE Stephen Williams EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Carole Lambert CORRESPONDENTS Sherelle Jacobs Wanjohi Kabukuru Frederick Mordi Lameck Masina MJ Morgan Richard Seymour Dominique Magada Nasseem Ackbarally SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS Moin Siddiqi Dr Karamo Sonko Eluem Izezi SUBSCRIPTIONS Abacus e-Media Chancery Exchange 10 Furnival Street London EC4A 1YH Telephone: +44 20 8950 9117 Fax: +44 (0)208 421 8244 icpublications@alliance-media. co.uk www.africanbusinessmagazine. com/main-articles/subs
GROUP PUBLISHER Omar Ben Yedder GENERAL MANAGER Leila Ben Hassen l.benhassen@icpublications.com VP DEVELOPMENT Saliba Manneh s.manneh@icpublications.com SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER Darren Moore d.moore@icpublications.com ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTORS Medrine Chitty Elisée Marie Nick Rosefield ADVERTISING advertising@icpublications.com DISTRIBUTION icpubs@icpublications.com PRODUCTION MANAGER Richard Briggs GHANA – DISTRIBUTION Nana Asiamah Bekoe Tel: +233 21 258058 kwabusek@gmail.com GHANA – SPECIAL PROJECTS AND ADVERTISING Silvia Salvetti Ollennu Tel: +233 24 910 5995 top@topreports.org NORTH AFRICA Néjib Ben Yedder n.benyedder @icpublications.com IC EVENTS info@ic-events.net Printers Headley Brothers Ltd The Invicta Press Queens Road, Ashford Kent, TN24 8HH All pictures AFP unless indicated. Registered with the British Library. ISSN 0142-9345 ©2015 IC Publications Ltd N° DE COMMISSION PARITAIRE 0315 K 89343 Mensuel: Mars 2015 Dépôt légal
4
Editorial Why African cities?
62 Real Estate Imogestin-SA
7
United Cities Jean-Pierre Mbassi
65 Architecture Let us build with joy
8
Africa Dimension The shape of African cities
66 New Cities: Luanda A place of dignity and joy
16 Star Interview José António Maria da Conceição e Silva, Minister for Urbanism and Habitat, Angola 24 A Triumph of Transformation Adriano da Silva, Director of Housing 26 Angola Indicators 28 History Tempered in the inferno 30 A timeline Economy 36 Rising from the ashes 42 Housing the people 46 New Cities: Kilamba Where life lives
72 Luanda Master Plan Designing for the future 74 80 83
The Provinces Uíge: A future full of light Benguela: A straight line to prosperity Cabinda: ‘The Kuwait' of Africa
84 86 88 90 94 96
Expert Viewpoints When social good outweighs profit Cities can overcome legacy of conflict Plan with the people, not for the people Why maintenance is vital Economic dimension of urban policy Cities and economic transformation
98 End Note Make us dream
58 Interview Maria Luísa Abrantes, CEO, ANIP
Also available in French and Portuguese. Please contact icpubs@icpublications.com if you would like a copy.
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It was in April 2013, during a conference on African urban infrastructure in Cape Town, organised by IC Events, that I first became aware of what sounded like a gigantic, nationwide housing project that the government of Angola had undertaken. By Anver Versi
Why African Cities?
J
osé António Maria da Conceição e Silva, Angola’s Minister for Urbanism and Habitat, who was attending the conference, told delegates that the country, now enjoying peace virtually for the first time since independence in 1975, had set into motion a programme to build around a million new homes by 2017. This, he said, was in response to the acute demand for decent housing from the millions who had been displaced by the war and who were now living higgledy-piggledy in vast slums in the capital, Luanda, and other cities such as Lobito, Benguela, Uíge and so on. But the housing shortage, magnified several times by the almost total lack of infrastructure growth during the war years, affected everyone, including public servants and essential professionals ranging from teachers and doctors to mechanics and traders. What the Minister was describing was something that all delegates from Africa, and, indeed, other developing countries, were perfectly aware of. African cities, mostly built to colonial specifications for colonial purposes, were by and large no longer fit for purpose. The population of Africa had grown by leaps and bounds over the half century or so since independence and the relentless stream from the countryside to the bright lights and opportunities that the cities offered, at least in people’s imaginations, had turned into a torrent. The countryside was emptying into the cities, but the cities, rigidly bound by real and artificial boundaries from an age long gone, were incapable of expanding. In a sense, the cities burst and the huge new populations
sprawled out in an uncontrollable rush – and dank and fetid slums spread out like cancerous growths. But this phenomenon was not confined to Africa. Two centuries ago, London and Paris were composed largely of similarly rank, stinking slums. One has only to read the works of Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, etc.) to be plunged into a dark world in which disease and dissolution ran rampant. Solutions were found and these cities are now the envy of their peers – but pockets of urban decay and rot still raise formidable problems whose solutions require considerable ingenuity and invention. Half a century ago, it was the turn of Asia to grapple with its expanding and exploding cities. Some, like Mumbai, Calcutta, Dhaka, to name a few, are still locked in a grim battle to make their cities liveable beyond the few, small oasis-bounded and controlled by wealth. Some, like Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul, again to name a few, have transformed into wonderful metropolises for their citizens to live, work and play in. Then, of course, there is China. Almost 55% of its total population of around 1.5bn (20% of the world’s total population) now live permanently in cities. For decades, the Chinese tried to stem the urban drift but whatever obstacles they put in the way of the movement were circumvented. Then, instead of fighting the impulse, they grew to like it and now actually encourage the move to the cities. They have discovered, like many others before them, that cities are the true wealth creators. The crush of populations, the intense struggle to survive and the unrelenting pressure to succeed and prevail seems to crystallise thought into gem-like ideas that spout new inventions almost by the hour. In two of the world’s wealthiest cities, less than 10% of the UK’s population live in rural areas while farmers account for between 1-2% of the total population of the US – a clear indication that functioning cities can, as it were, turn dust into gold. China, of course, has been reaping the benefits of its urbanisation programme and is now neck and neck with the US for the title of the world’s biggest economy. The planning, development, execution and management of China’s ‘new cities’ (built on the shells of ancient conurbations like Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing) now form degree courses for urban planners around the world. These cities have exploded the myth, which was in circulation for far too long, that cities simply evolve and adapt with time and only require a little tinkering here and there. They do evolve and adapt but quite often they end up as vast, chaotic, inefficient and dangerous collections of ghettos. Life is a constant struggle and a daily battle and all the economies of scale that cities provide are frittered away and largely eaten away by the inbuilt chaos and inefficiency. Cities that become dysfunctional are, in fact, the breeding grounds for social upheaval – giving rise to epidemics of criminality, violence, vandalism, ignorance, anger, unemployment, extremism and a nihilism that seeks to destroy all it beholds. Cities are indeed double-edged swords that can carve
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have any details. The language and cultural barrier, and the fact that we did not have a correspondent in the country, had cast a cloak of ignorance about what was really going on in that country. The only reference I had seen on the programme has been a small, smirking piece on the BBC’s website referring to one of the new urban centres, Kilamba, as a ‘Ghost City’ minus any people.
out a bright new future or that can turn on us and slash us to pieces. Examples of both form the staple of our daily global news content. Everything flows from the city It is no exaggeration to say that no single aspect of modern life is today more important than the state of urbanisation in any given African country. All other economic sectors advance or regress in direct relationship with the state of cities. Even agriculture, on which so much attention is lavished, ultimately depends on the health or otherwise of cities, as these form the chief market for produce from the rural areas and the finance, equipment and research that makes agriculture efficient is derived from, and located in, cities. It is no wonder therefore that the state of Africa’s cities is concentrating the best minds in Africa as never before. The issue is urgent as it is not possible to close down a city during refurbishment, and whatever must be done has to be done with the minimum disruption of daily life. But that something has to be done the length and breadth of Africa is no longer in any doubt. It was with these concerns and the others outlined above that delegates, who included urban and housing planning ministers, mayors, architects, engineers, economists, financiers, social and cultural specialists, urban designers, civic authorities and other specialists had gathered during the 1st Africa Urban Infrastructure conference in Cape Town that I mentioned at the start of my piece. It was during discussions at this conference that Minister José António Maria da Conceição e Silva informed us about his country’s massive urban renewal project, which included perhaps the most ambitious public housing programme ever contemplated in Africa. I must admit that although I had been aware of ‘some urban development’ projects in Angola, I did not really
Above: Construction around Luanda Bay.
An Africa-wide campaign When the Minister told us that, in fact, thousands of units of housing had already been constructed and more were on the way, we were sceptical. He invited us to visit Angola and see for ourselves what progress had been made. The invitation was enthusiastically accepted by the delegates and the Minister was urged to work towards holding the 2nd Africa Urban Infrastructure conference in Luanda. If, indeed, the reality matched what we had gleaned from him, there could be valuable lessons to be shared with the rest of Africa. We sat down with the Minister at a private dinner and thrashed out the details of the forthcoming conference. I remarked that the speed and decisiveness with which the Minister had taken the decision was refreshingly impressive. Minister José António Maria da Conceição e Silva, a man who clearly chose his words with care, said that there was no time to lose – the issue was too important for Africa to allow for dilly-dallying. In the meanwhile, he suggested we visit Angola to see for ourselves what progress the country had already made and write a special report on it. But, as we were preparing to take a small team to Angola, momentum had gathered and a number of other experts in the field began to show considerable interest. A month or so later, during the Africa Leadership Forum in New York, we sat down with Jean-Pierre Elong Mbassi, the secretary-general of United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA), who had been with us every step of the way in setting up and organising the urban infrastructure conference. He suggested that the topic of cities was so crucial in Africa’s development that it merited a separate issue of its own, still under the African Business umbrella. We agreed that this is the first of what we hope will be a series of issues devoted exclusively to African cities. In this issue, we concentrate largely on Angola and its novas centralidades but place it within the overall African context. We also locate the urban renewal campaign within the country’s history and its economy – sustainable cities should not, and indeed cannot, be created in isolation from the social, political and economic realities they spring from. Angola is a vast country and, of course, it was not possible for our team to travel everywhere or see everything. We have therefore highlighted those projects that best characterise the campaign and have added the opinions of various experts, from within and outside Angola, to give an additional dimension to the coverage. This first issue of African Business on African cities is our contribution to the essential, and urgent, discussion on how to create the great cities of our dreams. n
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Cities top African development agenda In less than 10 years, Africa’s urban population is set to increase threefold and hit 1.2bn – almost the same as the total population of the continent today. The need to plan for effective urban development is therefore both urgent and of the highest priority. By Jean-Pierre Mbassi, Secretary-General, United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG-A).
A
frica has undergone a shift in population over the last two generations. Its population has undergone rapid urbanisation over the last 50 years, changing from being mostly rural at the time of independence in the 1960s to the point that the share of urban population as a percentage of total population was estimated at about 40% in 2010, with an average growth rate of 5% per year. At this rate, in less than 10 years, experts estimate that the urban population of Africa will be greater than the total population of the European Union and the total urban population of Latin America and the Caribbean; and that Africa will enter the ‘urban age’ in around 2035. This marks the threshold where the share of urban population will account for the majority of the continent’s total population. Between 2010 and 2050, Africa’s urban population is set to increase threefold, from 400m to 1,200m, which means that the equivalent of the current total population of the continent – or a quarter of the world’s urban population – will
live in African cities. This is one of the major transformations of the continent which urgently needs to be taken into account. Rapid urbanisation is undoubtedly one of the factors explaining the dynamics of the ongoing democratisation of the continent, a dynamic that is often accompanied by decentralisation. On a political and institutional level this translates into the emergence of public authorities responsible for local governance, at the forefront of the management of urban development. This is particularly so in terms of access to basic services, promoting economic development and improving the population’s environment and living conditions. Urbanisation is also at the heart of the economic transformation of the continent. Cities already contribute more than 60% of Africa’s GDP while they are home to just under half of Africa’s total population. As a result, the cities themselves are central to the structural transformation of the continent because their attractiveness and competitiveness will depend on the attractiveness and competitiveness of African economies. Cities must therefore be regarded as the future habitat of African populations, as is the case everywhere else in the world. They are home to the majority of industrial and technological activities. They are the main connection point of the different regions and countries of Africa to the dynamics of the global economy. Because they are more densely populated than rural areas, they enable easier and more permanent
access to essential services to a larger portion of the population, and in doing so offer them a better environment and better living conditions. Cities are also at the heart of the challenges of democracy and citizenship. Risks of unplanned urbanisation We also know that unplanned urbanisation contains risks and presents challenges to populations and decision makers in terms of: concentrations of poor people in urban areas which are underequipped or unfit for construction; discrepancy between population growth and opportunities for the development of economic activities and jobs, especially for young people; migration management; development of inequality and discrimination of all kinds; maintaining social inclusion and cohesion between citizens; compliance with the requirements of sustainable development and good governance; and promotion of democracy and citizenship. It is therefore crucial for the future of African countries and the continent as a whole that the issue of rapid urbanisation and cities is seen as one of the priorities in development policies and strategies and the structural transformation of Africa. As an organisation dedicated to the promotion of decentralisation and the role of local and regional authorities in Africa’s development, United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG-A), we welcome the launch of a quarterly magazine dedicated to African cities. Its aim is to stimulate thinking and encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences about the management of urbanisation in Africa and its cities and territories. n
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Africa’s cities are growing at an unprecedented rate, creating huge commercial opportunities but also great inequalities and the potential for social tension. Building urban environments that meet the needs of residents and investors is a major challenge for African governments.
The shape of African cities Africa’s Megacities 2015 Population
Algiers, 1.6m Casablanca, 3.0m
Cairo, 11.0m
Khartoum, 4.5m
Dakar, 1.8m Kano, 3.3m
Addis Ababa, 3.4m
Abidjan, 4.2m Lagos, 10.8m
Nairobi, 3.2m
Kinshasa, 8.4m
Dar es Salaam, 3.4m
Luanda, 4.5m
Johannesburg, 3.8m Above: Africa Megacities 2015 Population
Cape Town, 3.5m
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Africa’s Africa’s UrbanUrban Population Population 1970 -1970 2050* - 2050*
s h a p e
Africa’s Megacities 2015 Population
Urban %Urban of % of total population total population
Cairo, 11.0m
Total urban Total population urban population
1.26bn1.26bn 400.1m 400.1m 53.3m 53.3m
Khartoum, 4.5m Kano, 3.3m
Abidjan, 4.2m Lagos, 10.8m
Nairobi, 3.2m
Kinshasa, 8.4m
Dar es Salaam, 3.4m
1.26bn 1.26bn
peoplepeople will live will inlive African in African cities by cities 2050, by 2050, more more than the than population the population of the of continent the continent today.today.
Sources: UN Sources: Habitat; UNUN Habitat; Development UN Development Programme; Programme; International International Monetary Fund Monetary Fund
Johannesburg, 3.8m Cape Town, 3.5m West Africa West Africa 138.9m, 138.9m, 44.3%44.3%
North Africa North Africa 102m,102m, 51.2%51.2%
Regional urban urban Regional population, 2010 2010 population,
East Africa 78.0m, 23.3%
Central Africa 51.9m, 40.9%
A f r i c a n
c i t i e s
J
2050 2050 2010 2010 1970 1970
57.7% 57.7% 39.2%39.2% 23.5%23.5%
o f
Africa’s Africa’s Megacities Mega 2015 2015 Population Population
Southern Africa 33.8m, 58.5%
utting out on a sandy spit into the Gulf of Guinea, Eko Atlantic is barely more than a dusty quarry next to Lagos’ infamously filthy Bar Beach. On its hoardings, though, architects’ impressions paint a vision of a cityscape that is more resonant of a desert emirate than the squat, saw-toothed skyline of Nigeria’s commercial capital. Just 4km away, under the city’s noodle soup of bridges and jetties, Kano 250,000 people are crammed into Makoko, a wood and corrugated Abidjan, Abidjan, 4.2m 4.2m iron mass of houses on stilts. st Lagos,Lago 10.8 This is the dichotomy of 21 century urban growth in sub-Saharan Africa, that economic development Kinsh and wealth creation are pulling people and capital into the region’s cities. While the demographic and economic growth in conurbations such as Lagos and Nairobi is exciting for consumer goods companies and real estate investors, are also crystallising – perhaps even exacerbating existing social and economic inequality – and creating a tension Ca between the city as a global commercial centre and the city as a habitat. “Eko Atlantic is completely out of the norm. It’s a Utopian environment that will not be accessible,” says Francis Owusu, Professor of Community and Regional Planning at Iowa State University and an expert in African urbanisation. Luxury urban islands like Eko Atlantic are not reflective of the cities East Africa East Africa they occupy. 78.0m,78.0m, 23.3%23.3% “We keep on having this vision of African cities that look more Western than African,” Owusu says. “Cities are the result of the cultural context in which they emerge. To aspire to have a city that has very little to do with the culture in which it is situated is not functional, because it doesn’t meet the needs of the people.” Africa’s urbanisation has accelerated in the 21st century. The percentage of the continent’s citizens living in urban areas is still below 50%, but the proportional measure masks the enormous absolute scale of urban population growth. Of the 100 fastest-growing cities in the world, 25% are in Africa.
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Crowded job market For many parts of Africa, the reality of urbanisation has not been the creation of gleaming mixed-use developments, but the expansion of informal settlements and growing disquiet over social and economic inequality. Finding long-term, sustainable solutions to the socio-economic implications of urbanisation in Africa, while simultaneously maintaining an environment where local and international private sector can thrive, will be among the defining political challenges of the current generation. “At this rate of growth, even in the best of circumstances, planners in Africa cannot deal with the mas-
Between 1950 and 2000, Africa’s urban population grew
Between 2000 and 2050, it will grow another
Africa’s total population surges past three billion individuals, and continues to grow.
2070
Africa’s urban population density hits 79 people / sq.km, twice that in 2010.
2050
Africa’s urban population exceeds 1bn people.
4.4x
2040
2030 2035
The African urban population surpasses 50 per cent of the continental total
Africa’s total population is more than Europe, South and North America combined.
8.7x Africa’s urban population is more than 400 million people, out of a total of more than 1 billion.
In 2010, the UN estimated that there were 400m people living in urban areas in Africa; by 2050 it will be 1.26bn. In 1970, it was a little over 53m. In two generations, the population has increased eightfold; in another it will quadruple again. This population growth is likely to prove a massive economic opportunity. The McKinsey Global Institute forecast that by 2030, the continent’s 18 largest cities will have a combined spending power of $1.3tr. Money is already flowing into companies and projects designed to catch the wave of urban prosperity. Shopping malls are being built from Accra to Nairobi; Walmart’s 2010 purchase of the South African retailer Massmart was explicitly targeted at a putative urban middle class moving from informal retail into supermarkets. The African Development Bank estimates that the middle class is 355m people strong – a number that is widely cited at investor presentations as evidence of the continent’s progress. However, the bank itself acknowledges that those at the bottom end of its description of ‘middle class’ are fragile to falling back towards poverty. Even those on ‘middle class’ incomes of $2 per day may in fact live in informal settlements in cities, without reliable access to infrastructure or services. In fact, as many as 62% of sub-Saharan Africa’s urban resident live in slums, as cities’ capacity for absorbing migrants remains stagnant.
2010
A F R I CA
Sources: UN Habitat; UN Development Programme; International Monetary Fund
In two generations, the population has increased eightfold; in another it will quadruple again. This population growth is likely to prove a massive economic opportunity
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In 2011, the number of African households with discretionary income was
In 2020, it will be
90m
128m
Africa’s 355m There will total Africans be 1.1 consumer In 2011, theare number now of African billion spending householdsinwitn the discretionary Africans of income wascontinent’s will reach working $1.4tr by emerging age by 2020, as middle 2040, more population than the class, and house- population earning hold between of the $2-20 per incomes continent rise. 355m Africans now day. In are today. 2020, it in the continent’s emerging middle class, earning will be between $2-20 per day.
90m
128m
Africa’s total consumer spending will reach $1.4tr by 2020, as population and household incomes rise.
By 2018, In 2020, there will 48% of beit806m In 2020, Africans will be mobile will have broadband some secondary subscripeducation, tions in Africa, up up from from 105m 40% in today. 2012.
128m
In 2015, two million cars are forecast to be sold in sub-Saharan Africa alone, with more in the continent as a whole.
By 2020,Africa’s workforce will have grown faster than any other region, expanding by
There will be 1.1 billion Africans of Sources: UN Habitat; UN Development International Monetary Fund he contiworking age by 2040, more Programme; than the ss, earning population of the continent today.
122m
In 2020, 48% of Africans will have nding will some secondary By 2020,Africa’s education,workup from pulation 40% inforce will have grown 2012. e. faster than any other region, expanding by By 2018, there will be 806m mobile cans of broadband subscriptions in Africa, up than the from 105m today. t today.
ill have up from
m mobile Africa, up
s h a p e
122m
In 2015, two million cars are forecast to be sold in sub-Saharan Africa alone, By 2030, the combined with more in the continent as a whole. purchasing power of the 18 largest African cities will be
$1.3tr
Sources: UN Habitat; UN Development Programme; International Monetary Fund r AfricanCitiesAngola2015.indb 11 e forecast
By 2030, the combined purchasing power of the 18 largest African cities will be
$1.3tr
o f
A f r i c a n
c i t i e s
sive influx of people into the cities,” Owusu says. “In other parts of the world, industrialisation preceded urbanisation. The situation in Africa is different, whereby people are moving into the city not because there are jobs, but because there is the promise of jobs.” This means that new urban populations find themselves stuck in a crowded job market, where labour is cheap and assets are not. In this environment, social mobility is difficult and wealth remains concentrated at the top. Housing booms benefit only those with capital to burn; and broad-based job creation and economic empowerment stalls. “When people move to urban areas in Africa and they don’t get jobs, they transpose their rural livelihood and bring it into an urban context. That’s what leads to the slums. Slums literally are an extension of rural livelihoods in an urban area,” Owusu says. What is needed, he explains, is a mind shift in how governments conceive African cities. For a start, they need to stop trying to build cities out of context. “The objective is not to make something that looks like New York City. I think we should start by looking at this from the point of view of the residents of the city, by literally throwing away some of our preconceptions and ideas about how a good urban form should look like, and we should focus on a functional urban form,” Owusu says. “We need an urban form that is functional, that meets the needs of the people, rather than looks good to an outsider, but doesn’t meet the needs of the people.” This means changing the definitions of formal and informal settlements. In an environment where the majority of the urban population live in informal areas, it is simply not appropriate to exclude them from how cities are designed, according to Owusu. “We need to re-examine this notion of informality as it is defined in the African context, or in the developing world context, and maybe sharpen it a little bit, and clarify the distinction between the formal and informal,” he says. “Because as
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Percentage of urban population livingininslums slums long as we keep using those terms, itPercentage of urban population living leads to the creation of very Utopian %, 2007 urban landscapes in African cities.” %, 2007Sources: UN Habitat; UN DESA The United Nations’ agency for Sources: UN Habitat; UN DESA the built environment, UN-Habitat, also concluded in its 2014 State of African Cities report that Africa needed to rethink its approaches to urbanism, stating: “The urban development models of post-independence Africa were based on concepts, philosophies and conditions that prevailed in Percentage of urban population living in slums the advanced economies during the %, 2007 mid-20th century. It is now clear Sources: that UN Habitat; UN DESA these approaches are of limited use to Africa, given today’s very rapid urbanisation, limited urban-based industries, high fossil fuel costs, rapidly diminishing resource bases, fiercely competitive global economic and financial environments, as well as the increasingly-felt threats and impacts of environmental and climate change.” African governments have made 90 < attempts to relieve population pres80< 90 sure in major cities, in part by building satellite conurbations that create 70 < 80 housing and workplaces connected 60 < 70 by road to the urban centre. 90 < Developments in Lekki, in Lagos, 50 < 60 and Konza City, outside of Nairobi, 80< 90 are envisioned as self-contained < 50 90 < cities. 80< 90 70 < 80 However, UN-Habitat says: “The 70 < 80 new towns and satellite cities now 60 < 70 60 < 70 being established to relieve pressures on the largest African urban 50 < 60 50 < 60 concentrations will also add to < 50 further urban slum proliferation, < 50 because these new towns almost exclusively cater for the residential needs of higher-income groups. “Consequently, there is near labour is low. Informal cities certainty that these new towns will “The fear is that these cities are Informal settlements, or slums, are soon be surrounded by the informal an uncomfortable feature of Africa’s going to develop a lot more like accommodations of the low-income South African cities or Brazilian urbanisation. They are often not labour needed to service these new cities, which are some of the most even acknowledged by national or cities.” municipal governments, leaving the highly unequal in the world. That’s In contrast to the low-density, the concern in places like Kenya, people who live there in a fragile low-cost satellite cities described where you have this huge labour limbo. Communities, such as Naiabove, Angola has embarked on a robi’s Korogocho, where several tens population which serves the needs different model to de-congest cities of the middle and upper classes but of thousands of people live by the swollen by tides of urban refugees it’s very hard to jump out of that Dandora rubbish dump, officially fleeing the 20 year civil war – it is [labour class] into the middle and do not exist. constructing new low cost cities upper class,” says Jeffrey Paller, who Many of the slum’s inhabitants and subsidising the cost of purstudies urbanisation and African work in or supply Nairobi’s service chase. It is also unrolling a vast politics at Bates University. industries, but since the workingprogramme of self-build housing Paller says that developing slum age population far outweighs the for the poor. number of available jobs, the cost of communities is not a short-term
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process, and requires an understanding of the often-complex political environment around land rights in much of Africa. “The transformation from informality to more formal legal recognition, political recognition, the distribution of services through municipality status, really does require a long, historical political struggle,” he says. Land rights are one part of the discussion. Some economists argue rces: UN Habitat; UN DESA Sources: UN Habitat; UN DESA that without title to land, people living in slums will not invest in building higher-quality housing, local governments will not put in place
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infrastructure and politicians may not recognise communities, denying them franchise. Paller does not believe that awarding land rights in informal urban settlements – which is being trialled by development finance institutions, including the World Bank – is a panacea, but rather the outcome of other political and economic processes. In some cases, political elites have a stake in maintaining the informality of some settlements; in others, such as Nairobi’s largest informal settlement, Kibera, there are competing economic interests
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the most,” Paller says. “In the ideal scenario, everybody who lives there would get property rights and land title. That would be a wonderful scenario. The problem is figuring out that and figuring out who’s the rightful owner is quite contentious. It’s a game of winners and losers. “The focus on land titles, land property rights, is crucial, but it has to be coupled with more opportunities for social mobility.” The private sector The influx of capital, much of it international, into African cities, can undoubtedly be a positive for informal communities, but only if certain conditions are met, Paller says. “The first thing is if there is strong community leadership. The second condition is if there are norms of reciprocity that develop between residents, so if residents trust one another and share with one another and have a system in place where they collectively act. And then, third, if the area has legal recognition. “If those three things are already in place, I’ve found that strong investment and an influx of capital can help the people and the community themselves. If those three elements are not in place – and oftentimes they’re not – the financial capital and the development will only contribute to private interests.” Owusu, too, is worried about the potential for private investment to contribute to widening, rather than narrowing inequality. “I think that private-public partnerships provide housing and infrastructure for people who have the means,” he says. “The middle class, certainly the expanding middle class that is exploding in many African cities, their needs are being addressed by private-public partnerships.” One way to achieve social mobility does come from the ability to own and leverage private property, Owusu
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says. Urban middle classes have developed in step with rising property values worldwide, but people locked out of the asset-owning classes often struggle to break in. He advises that governments find ways to help citizens borrow to develop property. “The funding isn’t there, they can’t get loans, and if they can, the interest is so high. The government could provide some kind of framework that would allow them to unleash the potential of their own housing into the economy and ownership of the land,” he says. Public resources need to be diverted to urban infrastructure, Owusu believes, as private investors will struggle to justify building water, sanitation and transport utilities in poor urban settlements. “We expect the private sector to be providing the infrastructure in cities, but the private sector will only provide this infrastructure to the people in the cities who can afford it,” he says. “Cities are not supposed to be privatised things. We have come to embrace privatisation as the solution to all problems, but cities in the West were not developed by the private sector. Governments invested a lot.” Perhaps the most important thing that governments and the private sector can do, he concludes, is to invest in labour-intensive industries. Developments aimed at the financial sector, such as Eko Atlantic, or technology businesses, like Konza City, will not create the large numbers of jobs needed for urban migrants. “Using employment as one of the important criteria for giving incentives for foreign investors would be a good way to start. Yes, we all talk about the service sector, but not all countries can skip the manufacturing sector and go directly to the service sector,” he says. “You don’t have to focus on housing to address the problems [of urbanisation]. “You have to focus on the economic wellbeing of the city.” n
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CONSTRUCTING A BOLD NEW COUNTRY
16 Star Interview José António Maria da Conceição e Silva, Minister for Urbanism and Habitat
24 A Triumph of Transformation Adriano da Silva, Director of Housing 26 Angola indicators 28 History and Timeline Tempered in the inferno
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Economy Rising from the ashes Housing the people New Cities: Kilamba Where life lives
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Investment Destination Maria Luísa Abrantes, ANIP Real Estate Imogestin-SA
65 Architecture Let us build with joy
66 New Cities: Luanda A place of dignity and joy
72 Luanda Master Plan Designing for the future 74 The Provinces Uíge: A future full of light 80 Benguela: A straight line to prosperity 83 Cabinda: ‘The Kuwait' of Africa 84 Expert Viewpoint When social good outweighs profit
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In this extensive two-part interview, Angola’s Minister for Urbanism and Habitat, José António Maria da Conceição e Silva, outlines his vision for Angola and the country’s massive public housing programme – the largest and most comprehensive in Africa – to African Business editor Anver Versi. In Part 1, he places the programme within the country’s current political, economic and social context; in Part 2, he goes into the details of his Ministry’s great project.
The social imperative Angola’s Minister for Urbanism and Habitat, José António Maria da Conceição e Silva Anver Versi: Since the end of the civil war in 2002, the MPLA government has embarked on a vigorous programme of national reconstruction and renewal. This has led to the world’s fastest rate of poverty reduction; and you are now in charge of one of the most ambitious housing programmes in Africa. What is the philosophy of the MPLA, what does the party stand for? José António Maria da ConceiçÃo e Silva: The MPLA is a movement that has democratic socialism at its core. As such, there is a strong social dimension driving our policies. The party has been leading the country since our independence in 1975 to this
day because it is the movement that has responded to the needs of the country and which has best articulated and addressed the views, the wishes and the aspirations of the Angolan people. The party is rooted in its democratic socialist nature and has not lost sight of its original vision – which has been the economic growth of the country and for the benefits of growth to be shared by the entire population. All our policies have been driven by this philosophy – and that is the form socialism takes in Angola.
sector and there is talk of greater privatisation in the near future. Although the party has a very social point of view, it is obviously fully aware of the market realities and incorporates these in its policies. As a party and a government, we seek to provide conditions in which private investment, both local and foreign, can flourish. An essential element of our policies is the creation of a dynamic private sector. The MPLA sees itself as a regulator and the promotion and support of the private section is within that system of regulation.
Although you have a democratic socialist orientation, you have been actively encouraging the private
What sectors will remain within state control and which ones are open to privatisation?
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1 populations into the towns and cities to find some security. And this had profound impact on the cities. They were simply not designed to accommodate the huge numbers streaming. People put up makeshift shelters wherever they could and this placed massive stress in terms of utilities, services. Security and infrastructure: a good deal of the infrastructure was also destroyed as a result of so many people crowding into the cities. And now, in terms of cities, the impact was huge because the war was quite intense in the country interior so there was a huge exit from the rural population – the population from the interior moving to the main cities, looking for security – so there was a huge stress in terms of infrastructure, in terms of services, and a lot of the infrastructure was also destroyed with such an amount of population living in cities.
First of all, there is need to understand that privatisation is an ongoing process and the process will not change direction in the near future. Today, the only sector in which we need state control is energy. There are companies involved but these are state-owned companies. The state also takes care, largely, of the education and health sectors, but, essentially, only energy is fully under state control. But there are ongoing processes and it may happen that in the future, private companies will also be called in to participate in the energy sector. What is the main source of power in Angola and is there an energy deficit? Over two thirds of Angola’s power comes from hydroelectric plants. There are 23 power stations, of which 16 are hydroelectric. Four plants are diesel, three are diesel/gas turbine and there is one thermal plant. The Matala dam, on the Cunene River, for example, is the main source of electricity in Southwest Angola. The Cambambe hydroelectric power plant on the Kwanza River, at the border of the Cuanza Norte and Bengo provinces has a power-generating capacity of 180 megawatts, enough to power over 120,535 homes. There are other examples of reservoirs and power stations destroyed or damaged by UNITA during the war which required major investments to repair them. Huge investment has gone into the rehabilitation of these power plants. To give you a random example, the construction of the Gove Dam began in 1969 and was completed in 1975 but work on the power station was halted by the civil war. It was finally inaugurated by President Dos Santos in 2012. The purpose of the dam is to generate power and also control flooding. There are other examples of dams and stations destroyed or damaged by UNITA during the war and which required a great deal of investment to repair. We are doing so and also investing heavily in new energy projects. We expect to be not only
self-sufficient in power in 2017/18 but should be in a position to export to neighbouring countries as well.
Above: Angola’s President José Eduardo dos Santos.
Can you describe the country you inherited in 2002? The country was in a very bad state; it had been devastated by war. To give you an example, it was not possible to travel by road from one province to another. As you know, Angola had a thriving agricultural sector but all the fields had become unusable because they were mined during the war, destroying all agricultural production and driving the rural
‘Our priorities were to rehabilitate the infrastructure, de-mine the countryside to revitalise agriculture and develop the health and education sectors’
What was the first priority for the government 12 years ago? We had several priorities. The infrastructure had to be rehabilitated to reconnect the various parts of the country and get the nation working again; we had to de-mine the countryside in the expectation that agriculture could be revitalised and we had to quickly develop the education and health sectors. Did this take the form of building schools and clinics? Building schools, hospitals, dispensaries and all the associated education and health infrastructures. Obviously it was not only enough to build health and education infrastructure but also to train human resources to make sure that the facilities were fully staffed with qualified professionals. I am trying to get my head around the scale of the work involved – including the training. Where do you start? You start from where you are. But it was not just health and education infrastructures – both hard and soft, i.e. the human element – that had to be put in place.
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All other sectors needed the same attention. We had to rehabilitate the transport sector – roads, rail, ports, airports; the energy sector – as we’ve already discussed – water supply, sewage, you name it, it had to be rehabilitated. Then there was the administration of all these activities and the normal day-to-day work of governance and bureaucracy. Not many of us outside Angola quite realise the immensity of the task that faced your government in 2002. Were there any particular countries that helped in the process or did the Angolans who were abroad come back? Even during the war, we used to send students abroad because we had a preoccupation to keep training our people and improving the quality of our human resources. I myself was part of this process. I went to Portugal for further studies and specialisations. A lot of Angolans went to Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe had provided the country with a good deal of support during the civil war and we were welcomed and provided with quality training and education. But quite a few also went to Western Europe. Many of our doctors were trained in Russia and Cuba – and they still have the reputation as some of the very best in Africa today. What are the government’s priorities over the next 10 years? Health, education and infrastructure. It’s essential to keep strengthening the infrastructure for two main reasons: one, you can attract foreign investment and, two, it allows you to industrialise and to diversify the economy. There is a specific plan for the industrialisation of Angola. This aspect and the diversification of the economy are extremely important in order to ensure that Angola becomes less and less dependent on oil. As you pointed out earlier, we want to avoid ‘the resource curse’ that many oil-producing countries fall into. We have plans to use the oil revenues to put us in a position from where we can diversify and industrialise fairly rapidly. Already,
‘Many of our doctors were trained in Russia and Cuba – and they still have the reputation as some of the very best in Africa today’ the contribution of the non-oil sector to the national GDP is increasing. How do you see Angola in the overall framework of Africa? Angola is an important country in the context of the continent and the African Union. We do serve as a model in terms of not only our growth indicators, which have been in double digits for a long while, but also the role we play in the stability of the continent. The reason I am asking this is because being a Portuguesespeaking country, coupled with the long war, you have remained a mystery to the rest of Africa.
Above: Quality education and training has been a priority.
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That is precisely why there is so much interest in Angola today We are one of the five Portuguesespeaking countries in Africa and it is true that this led to some sort of communication gap and there was not much information outside the Portuguese-speaking sphere. They did not know very much about Angola except that we were engaged in a brutal civil war. But this has been changing rapidly. Now there is a great deal of interest in what we are doing and the good things that are emerging. We are seen as an example of the progress that Africa is making and the way we implement our policies is creating a good deal of attention in Africa and elsewhere. So, for a long time, Angola was known only for its bloody, bloody civil war. Now that the situation is the complete opposite, the image of the country is also transforming and we are getting known for our correct programmes that are bringing growth and stability to the country. Besides, and I would like to stress this, we are implementing a wideranging and comprehensive national reconciliation policy. It has been largely successful and is underpinning the peace and stability that the country now enjoys. One should not forget that whatever we have achieved so far has only been possible because we have peace. I am sure other countries in the region who have had to endure internal strife as we did, or who are still engaged in it, can discern valuable lessons from our example. How active is Angola at the moment in the African Union? The best answer I can give you, which is also the best example, is the massive support we received from the African Union when we were elected Non-permanent Member of the UN Security Council. This vote of confidence in us reflects and shows the important role Angola plays in terms of reconciliation and stability in Africa and within the African Union. Thank you very much for part one of the interview. n
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Building the Pearl of Africa In this part, we go the specifics of your Ministry, which is concerned with urbanisation and housing. Angola is among the handful of countries that has a clear policy and a programme for urbanisation on a national scale. How has this process come about? The urban drift in Africa is unstoppable and in a few years, the majority of the continent’s population will live in cities and towns. But apart from a few counties – perhaps Nigeria, Kenya and some North African nations such as Morocco – there is a lot of talk but little action. Most of Africa hopes the ‘urban issue’ will simply resolve itself. We know it will not. We set out to tackle the issue as soon as it was possible to do so after the war and the aim has been not only to solve the urban infrastructure and housing problem but also to create new and great centres of growth. It is important to emphasise that the Urbanisation and Housing programme was formulated and led by the President of the country himself. There was a direct order from President Dos Santos that we had to pull out all the stops and embark on the project – or shall I say, several projects – that would provide excellent housing at an affordable cost to our people. He coordinated the project at the highest political level to underscore the importance it has in national development. When the President put his own weight behind it, and showed his keen interest in this area, the programme received the top priority and all the resources it deserved. It was amazing to see the degree of commitment made by the national leader and, with this type of passion behind it, the project could proceed rapidly.
which involves the building of one million homes. Of this, the contribution of the public sector is 11.5%; public/private 12%; cooperatives 8% and self-managed construction 68.5%. Three: Urban renewal, which consists of the refurbishment and upgrading of run-down areas and living quarters through the implementation of the necessary urban infrastructure policies.
As you and your team, including your photographer, have seen and will go on to see in the provinces, the concept was enormous and, yes, very ambitious. But we have pulled it off. The project is still in its early stages, and no doubt there will be teething problems, but new cities such as Kilamba have completely changed the way that ordinary people in this country have lived. The ‘new centralities’ as you say in Portuguese, and the ‘new cities’ as we say in English, are indeed a major innovation in terms of public housing in Africa. What are the basic principles behind it? The New Centralities arises from the programme known as the “National Programme for Urbanism and Housing” (PNUH), coordinated by a National Commission presided over by his Excellency the President of the Republic. The overarching programme has several components or sub-programmes: One: Urbanisation. This involves studies from different spatial planning instruments, such as urbanisation plans, master plans, etc, the setting up of funding reserves and their infrastructure. Two: National reconstruction,
Above: New cities such as Kilamba are changing the way people live.
How will the new settlement programme alleviate some of the habitat challenges that Angola has inherited? Given demographic growth projections, there is an estimated deficit of 60% in terms of current available housing. The PNUH will, in fact, significantly reduce this deficit and will also contribute to the regularisation of real estate market costs in the country. Clearly, this is a huge undertaking involving many arms of the government and other agencies. How was the process carried out, for example, the choice of contractors and so on? In Angola, as opposed to Singapore, one of my favourite cities in the world, and in some countries, the government owns all the land – with some private ownership in the cities – but essentially the government owns the land. This is a huge advantage as we can plan exactly what needs to be done and get on with doing it. Of course, you cannot just eject people from their homes, for example, in the slum areas, without providing them with somewhere else to live. So the process is what we call ‘rehousing ‘in situ’. In terms of contractors and so on, there are clear legal procedures involving public tenders nationally
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and internationally, and supervised by specific authorities (taking into consideration the Law concerning Public Procurement, which is a regulatory instrument for procurement carried out by the Angolan state).
‘When you talk about urban regeneration, the creation of new cities, you are talking about a host of things that are needed for an enjoyable and productive life in cities’
Was your Ministry created specifically to deal with this issue? My Ministry has evolved from a process. Without going too much into detail – or history – there was a Ministry for Urban Planning and Construction that dealt with the construction of roads, highways and public buildings. But it became clear that a separate Ministry, dedicated to urbanism and housing, had to be created so that it could also tap into the other Ministries, such as environment, water, power and so on in order to plan and execute the construction of new cities and the regeneration of existing ones. When you talk about urban regeneration, the creating of new cities or housing for the people, you are not talking only about structures and infrastructure – you are talking about a whole host of things that are needed for an enjoyable and productive life in cities. As you say, it is a vast and complex undertaking, which involves the coordination of an array of expertise, legislation, communication, financing, revenues and so on. Are you happy with the progress so far? There is still a lot to do but I am quite happy with what has been done until now. The idea of swapping oil for construction with Chinese construction companies seems to have worked very well. Whose idea was it? We had something that the Chinese needed and the Chinese
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had something that we needed. But we have made similar deals with others as well. And so far the relationship is good and mirrors the programmatic vision of the head of the Angolan state. There has been considerable criticism of the build-quality of some structures, especially those involving Chinese firms. Some buildings we saw had cracks and there was water damage. Whose responsibility is it to fix this? Yes, I agree that the finish in some cases is not quite up to standard but when you consider the scale of the project and the speed of construction, this is inevitable. I don’t agree that the faults have come about because of the nationality of the Chinese as some have suggested. They have been excellent builders for centuries. There are many other factors and many other agencies involved – designers, supervisors, project managers, building contractors, input suppliers and so on. At any rate, the agreement is that after an initial two-year ‘provisional reception’ period, during which it will be possible to know what is right and what is wrong, it will be the responsibility of the contractor to fix whatever faults appear. This is not unusual – you will find similar situations in virtually all construction work. What is of pressing priority for us is to construct decent housing for as many of our citizens as we can. They have waited long enough. Construction problems and issues will be solved as they crop up but you cannot wait until the perfect system turns up before starting to build. You will wait forever! You have visited Kilamba and spoken to the residents there. What do they tell you? By and large they are delighted. The freshly painted blocks look beautiful and the apartments are large and well designed. There is no doubt that these are the best public housing units not only in Africa but, I would say, the developing world. But I believe you had an issue because the units had been too expensive for the people you had in mind?
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no conflict there! By the way, when the President saw the original plans, he directed that the living space be increased by 10% because he said Africans tend to have families with several children and he did not want them to feel squeezed. I believe that the monthly outlay for a unit such as the one we mentioned is around $150. Put this in context of the fact that Luanda is considered one of the most expensive cities in the world because we have to import so much, and you will begin to understand just what this project means to the quality of life of the ordinary person.
‘It is easy for us to adapt and adjust policies if these are what the people want. We see it as our responsibility to provide decent housing for the majority’ Yes. The initial prices were out of the range of many of our people but, as soon as the government realised this, we made adjustments. We reduced the cost of the units to around $90,000 for a three-bedroom + 1 apartment on an extended mortgage basis and made the terms as easy as is feasible. I am surprised that some people are surprised at our flexibility at the national level and the speed with which we made adjustments. But, remember our party has a social orientation so it is easy for us to adapt and adjust policies if these are what the people want. We also see it as our responsibility to provide decent housing for the majority, so there is
Above: Laying down the infrastructure for a housing project in the new cities.
That is the cost of two and a half lunches at the hotel I am staying at! (Laughter) But I believe that the majority of building materials used in the construction programme are imported. Are there any plans to encourage local production of some of the material? Yes, the industrialisation thrust taking place in the country has given priority to the local manufacture of construction materials by providing incentives for the sector – which mainly involve tax relief. With this policy, it is hoped to substantially reduce the cost of real estate through cheaper construction. In addition to the massive social housing projects, there are dozens of other building construction projects on the go, especially in Luanda. The developments in Sambizanga and Cazenga and also in Lobito, along the seafront, are very ambitious projects and if they come to pass Angola may even leapfrog the usual development process and end up with a state-of-the art African version of, say, Singapore? I love Singapore. Why not? In fact, the master plans for Sambizanga and Cazenga were drawn up by a Singaporean firm. The modern Singapore, which they are rapidly converting into a ‘Garden City’, evolved from one of the worst slums in Asia only 60 or so years ago. And they do not have oil! So of course it can be done if the will and the vision are there. Angola wants to be the pearl of Africa and I am confident we will get there. n
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SIGMA GROUP CONSULTING LTD, is a multidisciplinary consulting company in the field of SIGMA and GROUP CONSULTING LTD, is a multidisciplinary consulting company in the field of Architecture Engineering, in Angola, having been established in the market in 2002. Architecture and Engineering, in Angola, having been established in the market in 2002.
SIGMA GROUP CONSULTING LTD, through its international partners group with activities on the SIGMA GROUP CONSULTING LTD, through its international partners group with activities on the AfricanAfrican continent andand in the international and given giventhetheaccumulated accumulated technical expertise, continent in the international market, market, and technical expertise, has positioned itselfitself strategically EngineeringConsulting Consulting companies in Angola, has positioned strategicallyasasone oneofof the the best best Engineering companies in Angola, providing services in inthetheareas and construction constructionprojects projects providing providing services areas ofof management management and also also providing infrastructure intengrated services related infrastructure intengrated services relatedwith with the the environment. environment. SIGMA MANAGEMENT GROUP CONSULTING LTD, is a multidisciplinary consulting company in the field of PROJECT MANAGEMENT DESIGN SERVICES PROJECT DESIGN SERVICES Architecture and Engineering, in Angola, having been established in the market in 2002. SUPERVISION SERVICES CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SUPERVISION SERVICES CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SIGMA GROUP CONSULTING LTD, through its international partners group with activities on the African continent and in the international market, and given the accumulated technical expertise, has positioned itself strategically as one of the best Engineering Consulting companies in Angola, providing services in the areas of management and construction projects also providing infrastructure intengrated services related with the environment.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT SUPERVISION SERVICES
COMPLEXO SIGMA Via S8, S/Nº Distrito Urbano de Talatona COMPLEXO SIGMA Município de Belas, Luanda - Angola
COMPLEXO SIGMA Via S8, S/Nº Distrito Urbano de Talatona Via S8, S/Nº Município de Belas, Luanda - Angola Distrito Urbano de Talatona Município de Belas, Luanda - Angola AC_Angola 4Star Interview Silva.indd 23 Untitled-4
DESIGN SERVICES CONTRACT MANAGEMENT
Tel : +244 26 430660-64 Fax: +244 266 430665 www.sigmagroup.ao
Tel : +244 26 430660-64 Fax:Tel +244 266 430665 : +244 26 430660-64 www.sigmagroup.ao
Fax: +244 266 430665 www.sigmagroup.ao
21/02/2015 11:20 22:31 12/02/2015
S P OT L I G H T:
A D M I N I ST R AT I O N
A triumph of transformation
E
Director of Housing, Ministry of Urbanism and Habitat, Adriano da Silva
ven a fairly rapid, and limited, reconnaissance of Angola’s urbanisation programme reveals that this is not your standard urban development project – the scale is so vast that it is difficult to take it all in or put it into some sort of familiar context. The only way to undertake and implement a programme of this magnitude is to have an administrative underpinning of like capacity but sufficient flexibility to be able to adapt quickly to the needs of changing circumstances. I met up with Adriano da Silva, the National Director of Housing in the Ministry of Urbanism and Habitat, to get some idea of the administrative foundation behind the programme. It was instantly clear that to understand the full range of his department’s functions would take many days, so we confined our conversation to a few topics that would be of interest to foreign investors in particular. He explained that the administrative structure was composed of the Minister of Urbanism and Habitat, then the relevant Secretary of State, followed by three executive directors: for housing, for urban infrastructure and for territorial planning. While all the departments had specific tasks, they all had to work seamlessly together to bring all the
factors of production – suitable land sites, clearances, basic infrastructure (water, power, sewerage, treatment plants, roads, etc), developers, contractors, finance and materials – together to make the various projects possible. Da Silva’s specific area is in housing – both private and public, but with emphasis on public housing. He explained that the private sector was very much a critical factor in helping to realise the national dream of a million new homes by 2017. “We have several Public-PrivatePartnerships (PPP) involved and are looking to engage the private sector more as we go forward. Foreign investment is welcome – the rates of return have been excellent.” On PPP projects, the state’s financial contribution is 20% while the investor puts in 80%. In return, the investor gets access to land, in most cases on sites that are already urbanised, in that they are connected to utilities and often have the basic infrastructure in place with the necessary legal clearances. Demonstrate capacity The investors, in turn, have to demonstrate their capacity to build to specific standards and put the finished units on the market. The state does not engage directly with the market. On average, the developers are expected to provide housing for
mixed income levels: low, medium and high. Is there a cap on the pricing for this type of housing? “The cap for low-cost housing is $60,000 although a price tag of around $30-35,000 is more realistic in terms of what that segment of the market can bear,” says Da Silva. There is no cap on the higher-value housing – “whatever the market will pay”. The Ministry has made 100 hectares of land in each province available for this type of housing. “Obviously we want to develop areas outside Luanda and the major cities to disperse the population as well as contain the urban drift,” he says. “This is not an attempt to stop urbanisation as some people suggest – urbanisation cannot be stopped and it has tremendous capacity to transform economies and vastly improve the quality of life of the people – but to control urbanisation and prevent the build-up of ugly slums. Hence the concept of new cities – or centralities – where you enjoy all the benefits and facilities of modern urban living without having to live on top of each other in ramshackle dwellings. This is how we see the way forward not only for Angola but also for the rest of Africa, where the issue of urban management has become so very crucial.” As an example, he pointed out that developers and contractors such as China’s giant CITIC and CIF (China
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Left: Adriano da Silva, the National Director of Housing in the Ministry of Urbanism and Habitat.
International Fund) and Angolan companies such as Imogestin and Kora Angola were building around 80,000 units in Zango, Cabinda, Bengo, Benguela, Huila, Lunda Norte, Uíge, Kwanzu South, Luanda, Moxico, Bié and Huambo. Some 300,000 units have already been completed. He said that in addition to the housing being built by a variety of developers and contractors, each of the country’s 164 districts allocate parcels of land outside the main built-up areas for 200 units. The bulk of low-cost housing will be what is called ‘auto-build’ in which the state provides the basics and guidelines and the new owners construct their own dwellings. Angola has a long tradition in self-build and with the correct guidance from his department or others within the Ministry, he expects this type of housing to be of good quality. Looking to the future, he sees great investment potential in several projects – for example phases 2 and 3 at Kilamba where the plan is for an additional number of units, including a large chunk of higher-end housing. This conversation focused on only a small aspect of the responsibilities of Da Silva’s department, which is just one of other departments under the Ministry. Clearly, in undertaking this massive overall programme, Angola has had to very rapidly develop administrative and management capacity of a very high order over a remarkably short time. It must be seem as a triumph of transformation. n
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I N D I CATO R S
10
1
3
4
Top 10 Cities
8
5
Cabinda
Zaire Uíge
Bengo Cuanza Norte
Luanda
Angola indicators Angola’s motto is Virtus Unita Fortior, a Latin phrase meaning “Virtue is stronger when united”.
Lunda Norte
Malanje Lunda Sul
Cuanza Sul
Huambo
Bié
Moxico
Benguela
Huíla
Namibe
Cuando Cubango Cunene
9
7
2
6
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Government The executive branch of the government is composed of the President, the Vice-Presidents and the Council of Ministers. Location Angola is the seventh-largest country in Africa, and is bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean and Luanda is its capital city. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Administration Angola is divided into 18 provinces (províncias) and 163 municipalities. The municipalities are further divided into 475 communes (townships).
Largest cities or towns of Angola Name
Province
1. Luanda
Luanda
2. Huambo 3. Lobito 4. Benguela 5. Lucapa 6. Kuito 7. Lubango 8. Malanje
Huambo Benguela Benguela Lunda Norte Bié Huíla Malanje
9. Namibe 10. Soyo
Namibe Zaire
Recent milestones On 16th October 2014, Angola was elected for the second time as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, with 190 favourable votes out of 193. The mandate began on 1st January 2015 and lasts for two years. Also in that month, the country took on the leadership of the Group of African Ministers and Governors at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, following the debates at the annual meetings of both entities. Since January 2014 the Republic of Angola holds the presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). In 2015, the executive secretary of ICGLR, Ntumba Luaba, said that Angola is the example to be followed by members of the organisation, because of the significant progress made over the 12 years of peace, particularly in terms of socioeconomic and political-military stability. With a stock of assets corresponding to $70bn (Kz 6.8bn), Angola is now the third largest financial market in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassed only by Nigeria and South Africa.
The first Angolan satellite, AngoSat-1, will be ready for launch into orbit in 2016 and will ensure telecommunications throughout the country. According to Aristides Safeca, Secretary of State for Telecommunications, the satellite will provide telecommunications services, TV, internet and e-government and will remain into orbit “at best” for 18 years. n
Recognised national languages
Kikongo, Chokwe, Umbundu, Kimbundu, Ganguela, Kwanyama
Ethnic Groups (2000)
Ovimbundu
36%
Ambundu Bakongo other African Mestiço Chinese European
25 % 13 % 22 % 2% 1% 1%
Demonym
Angolan
Government President Vice President
Unitary Presidential Republic José Eduardo dos Santos Manuel Vicente
Legislature
National Assembly
Independence
From Portugal, on 11th November 1975
Size of the country Land Mass
Population Size Density
GDP (PPP) Total Per capita
In October 2014, the building of the first fibre-optic underwater cable in the Southern Hemisphere was announced. The project aims to turn Angola into a continental hub, thus improving internet connections both nationally and internationally.
i n d i c a t o r s
1,246,700 km2 481,354 square miles 23rd biggest country in the world, in size 24,383,301 (as per the 2014 census) 14.8/km2 (199th most densely populated country) 38.4/sq mi 2014 estimate $139.059bn (64th in the world) $6,484 (107th in the world)
GDP (nominal) Total Per capita
2014 estimate $129.785bn (61st in the world) $6,052 (91st in the world)
Gini (2009) HDI (2013)
42.7 (medium) 0.526 (low - 149th)
Currency as at 31 Jan 2015
Kwanza (AOA) $1 = 105 kwanza
General Information Time zone Drives on the Calling code ISO 3166 code Internet TLD
WAT (UTC+1) Summer (DST), not observed, UTC +1 right +244 AO .ao
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Tempered in the inferno of history
Few countries in Africa have had to endure as much trauma and conflict as Angola. Angolans say that, like the best steel, they have been tempered in the inferno of history and have emerged stronger and more determined. Reference to history is still very much part of everyday life in Angola and the current explosion of construction in the country can only be understood in the light of Angola’s history.
T
he skyline around the magnificent Luanda Bay in Angola’s capital city is changing so rapidly that some photographers complain that their pictures of the city are out of date by the time they can get them to their customers. Yet, amid the confusion of scaffolding surrounding dozens of huge building projects and a forest of glittering new steel, concrete and glass towers, you can catch glimpse of staid, old-fashioned but graceful buildings that clearly belong to a bygone age. The National Bank building, for example, is an exquisite, 150-yearold survivor from the colonial period when the Portuguese transplanted some of their finest architectural concepts in Angola. The country’s new Parliament building, a splendid structure with a glorious, rose-coloured dome, also pays due respect to the country’s history and its legacy.
Left: Mural from the São Miguel Museum Fort.
Even as Angola is reconstructing a new country on the war-battered foundations of its old self and as the sharply modern relentlessly drives out the obsolete past, you realise that the country is dripping with history. In addition to numerous wellappointed museums, such as the Slavery Museum, which pulls no punches in depicting the horrors of this inhuman trade and which serves as both a real and symbolic reminder of just how far, and with how much pain, suffering, determination and courage the people of Angola have come, there is the needle-sharp memorial to Agostinho Neto. Rising like a rocket cast in marble, the memorial dominates a vast ceremonial square and park in the heart of Luanda. It was inaugurated on 17 th September 2012 to coincide with Neto’s birthday (17/09/1922). It is brimming with photographs, documents and objects relating to Neto and the gigantic struggles he led the
country through. Enormous paintings replete with startlingly vivid details recreate some of the most decisive battles involving the Angolan forces. Still holding its own on a hill overlooking the Luanda Bay is the Fortaleza de São Miguel or Saint Michael Fortress, which was built in 1576 by Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais, who also established the city of São Paulo da Assunção de Luanda. This fortress, which at one time was a self-contained town within its thick walls, protected by an array of cannon, was a major outlet for the nefarious Atlantic slave trade that captured and transported hundreds of thousands of Angolans to Portuguese colonies in São Tomé and thence to Brazil. It also became the administrative capital of the Portuguese colonial administration. Today, the fortress, which has been restored to its pristine condition, houses the Museum of the Armed Forces. A set of murals in
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The museum tells the dramatic story of Angola’s war of independence, the civil war and finally, the end of war and the onset of peace
Right: The statue of 17th century Queen Ana Nzinga (also known as Ana de Sousa Nzinga Mbande). Below: A mural of Angolan history. Right: A mural of the independence struggle featuring the first and current Presidents.
and sundry other notables. At one time, these notables were proudly mounted on plinths in prominent positions within the town. Now they look out of place, like jetsam washed ashore from a shipwreck.
relief mounted on the gateway to the museum tells the dramatic story of Angola’s war of independence, the civil war and finally, the end of war and the onset of peace. All the major historic figures, António Agostinho Neto, the country’s first President, José Eduardo dos Santos, the current President, Jonas Savimbi, the defeated leader of UNITA, and other actors are rendered with remarkable dramatic effect. Inside the courtyard are startling statues of ancient Portuguese figures, Paulo Dias de Novais, Diogo Cão, reputed to be the first European to set foot on Angola, Vasco da Gama, who rounded the Cape of Storms (Cape of Good Hope) and discovered the sea route to India, Portuguese poet Luís de Camões
Imposing tribute But there is also an imposing tribute to a great 17 th century Angolan ruler, Queen Ana Nzinga, renowned for her intelligence and wit, who made an alliance with the Dutch to fight the Portuguese and twice routed strong Portuguese armies in 1644 and 1647. She personally continued to lead resistance to the Portuguese well into her sixties but also shrewdly made alliances for her people when this course of action seemed to make most sense. Above all, she is remembered for refusing to take a subordinate status when negotiating with the Portuguese and insisting on being treated as an equal. Her legacy of independence of spirit permeates society to this day and it is said that many women insist on getting married beneath her statue as a sign of their own freedom and independence. The courtyard also contains a selection of real weapons used during the wars – Russian built aeroplanes, tanks, Apartheid-era South African Defence Force armoured cars, machine guns and other deadly instruments of death. Inside, however, you seem to step into a time capsule. There is a large chamber whose walls are completely covered by blue-painted ceramic tiles, known as azulejos, which tell, in graphic detail, the early history of the Portuguese advance into Angola. We visited the museum on a Sunday but there were two parties
1885–1930
1956
A historic timeline 1300s
Kongo kingdom
1575
The first Portuguese explorers arrive in Luanda.
17th and 18th centuries Angola becomes a major Portuguese trading arena for slaves. Between 1580 and 1680, a million– plus are shipped to Brazil.
1836
Slave trade officially abolished by the Portuguese government.
Portugal consolidates colonial control over Angola, local resistance persists.
1951
Angola’s status changes from colony to overseas province.
The beginnings of the socialist guerrilla independence movement, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in northern Congo.
1950s–1961
Nationalist movement develops, guerrilla war begins.
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Independence
1961
Forced labour abolished after revolts on coffee plantations leave 50,000 dead. The fight for independence is bolstered.
1974
Revolution in Portugal, colonial empire collapses.
1976
MPLA gains upper hand.
1979
MPLA leader Agostinho Neto dies. JosĂŠ Eduardo dos Santos takes over as President.
1987
South African forces enter Angola to support Unita.
1988
South Africa agrees to Namibian independence in exchange for removal of Cuban troops from Angola.
1989
Dos Santos and Unita leader Jonas Savimbi agree ceasefire, which collapses soon afterwards, and guerrilla activity resumes.
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of school children with their teachers and guides. Some of the issues raised by the exhibits would have sounded very strange to these children, most of whom were born after the war but it was fascinating to see the vivid interest with which they learnt about their history. But the children are not alone. A clear grasp of their history is considered essential by the citizens of this country which has indeed been squeezed through the mangle of time, including perhaps the ugliest example of proxy war in modern times. It is easy to forget, as you wander around modern Luanda, for example, that the civil war, which lasted for almost three decades, only finally came to an end in 2002. All the county’s much-admired development, including an economic growth rate that averaged 11.1% between 2000 and 2010 (GDP growth averaged 20% between 2005 and 2007), a world record in achieving the fastest decline in poverty rates, perhaps the biggest public housing scheme in Africa and massive investment into infrastructure, have all been achieved since 2002 – an extraordinary performance by any measure. By embracing and displaying its history, Angola lays out a continuing tableau, an uninterrupted narrative of its painful, but also often glorious, evolution over the centuries. The country is still busy writing its own history but this time, the instruments being used are cement, stone, steel, glass and an unfettered determination to build the most magnificent cities on the African continent.
The country is still busy writing its own history but this time, the instruments being used are cement, stone, steel, glass and an unfettered determination to build the most magnificent cities on the African continent
Right: A captured South African Defence Force armoured vehicle from the South African border war.
Towards peace
1991 April MPLA drops Marxism– Leninism in favour of social democracy.
May Dos Santos, Savimbi sign peace deal in Lisbon which results in a new multiparty constitution.
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
September Presidential and parliamentary polls certified by UN monitors as generally free and fair. Dos Santos gains more votes than Savimbi, who rejects results and resumes guerrilla war.
UN imposes sanctions against Unita. The US acknowledges the MPLA.
Government, Unita sign Lusaka Protocol peace accord.
Dos Santos, Savimbi meet, confirm commitment to peace. First of 7,000 UN peacekeepers arrive.
Dos Santos, Savimbi agree to form unity government join forces into national army.
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History of Angola in brief Kingdoms Angola is a vast country – twice the size of France – and stretches, west to east from the Atlantic coast, to Zambia; and north to south from DR Congo to Namibia. Thus it lies at the very heart of Africa and was the epicentre of the great Bantu kingdoms of central Africa. Of these, perhaps the greatest were the Kingdom of the Kongo, which dominated northwest Angola and spilled over into DR Congo, the Republic of the Congo and southern Gabon; and the Mbunda Kingdom in southeast Angola, which endured until the late 19th century. These were sophisticated, wellorganised kingdoms with busy trading links that extended to the Great Mutapa Empire in Zimbabwe. They were skilled metal, wood and bone and ceramics workers producing a variety of practical objects including fearsome weapons. Their artistic skills as carvers reverberates to this day – the great Spanish artist Picasso said it was seeing the stylised carvings from this region that opened his eyes to Cubism. Some objects from the wider area recently fetched millions of dollars at art auctions in London and New York.
Above: The famous azulejo painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework from the colonial period.
trading posts but later fortified them and used them as bases to push their explorations both around the continent and also into the interior. The Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais founded São Paulo de Loanda (Luanda) in 1575. He came with 400 soldiers and a hundred families of settlers. A few years later, in 1587, the Portuguese established another fort at Benguela, which became a town in 1617. By this time, the Portuguese were busily engaged in the slave trade, mainly for their plantations in Brazil. This trade would last until the first half of the 19th century. They also found lucrative commerce in raw materials, elephant tusks, rhino horn and dried fish. The Portuguese extended their
1998
1999
2002
Full-scale fighting resumes. Thousands killed in next four years of fighting.
UN ends its peacekeeping mission.
February Savimbi killed by government troops. Government, Unita sign ceasefire shortly afterwards.
The Portuguese era In the 15th century, the Portuguese, looking for a sea route to the spice lands of India around the continent of Africa made landfall at several points along the Atlantic coast. Initially, they tended to establish small
1997 April Unified government inaugurated, with Savimbi declining post in unity government and failing to attend inauguration ceremony.
May Tension mounts, with few Unita troops having integrated into army
grip on the coastal strip through a series of treaties and wars through the 16th century. But their dominance was being challenged by other European powers and for a brief while (1641 to 1648), they were ousted by the Dutch who occupied Luanda. The Dutch had found allies in the local people such as Queen Anna Nzinga mentioned earlier. However, the Portuguese showed little inclination to expand inland in Angola until after the ‘Scramble for Africa’ and Berlin Conference of 1885. Several military expeditions were organised to go into the interior to ‘establish presence’ as demanded by the Berlin Conference but even until 1906, only some 6% of the country was under effective Portuguese control.
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It was not until the after the resistance posed by the Mbunda king, Mwene Mbandu I Lyondthzi Kapova, was overcome that in 1951 the Portuguese government designated the colony as an overseas province of Portugal, called the Overseas Province of Angola. Fight for Independence The ‘Winds of Change’ initiated by the end of World War II triggered off spirited campaigns for independence from colonialism not only in Africa but around the world. In Angola, the independence movement was led by three movements: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) led by Agostinho Neto; the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) led by Holden Roberto and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Jonas Savimbi. Agostinho Neto, son of a Methodist pastor, studied medicine in Portugal and became involved in the liberation struggle from an early age. He was arrested by the Portuguese authorities, exiled, placed under house arrest, escaped to Morocco and Zaire; was turned down by the Kennedy Administration when he asked for US support but established a lifelong relationship with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and met Che Guevara in 1965. Independence The ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 1974 was a military coup that overthrew the regime of Portuguese leader
Estado Novo, successor to the dictator António Salazar. This paved the way for the total independence of Angola with Neto as the country’s first leader. Civil War However, within months of gaining independence, conflict among the three major political parties broke out, aided and abetted by outside powers pursuing their own economic and ideological aims. Angola became enmeshed in the Cold War with the US, Zaire and apartheid South Africa supporting the FNLA and UNITA and the Soviet Union and Cuba supporting the MPLA. (See Timeline). This developed into one of the most vicious wars in the history of the continent with millions of mines scattered about in the rural countryside. This led to a virtual depopulation of the countryside as people sought refuge in the cities, thus creating one of the biggest slums in Africa in Luanda. To make matters worse, an estimated 300,000 to half a million Portuguese who ran most of the economic institutions and businesses, left to take up new lives in South Africa, Europe and the US. They left a massive administrative black hole and even sabotaged power stations, farms and other vital utilities, plunging Angola almost into bankruptcy. (Interestingly, it is now estimated that up to 200,000 Portuguese are now living in Angola and that, in an effort to escape the declining economy of Portugal,
Demobilisation
2002 May Unita’s military commander says 85% of his troops have gathered at demobilisation camps. There are concerns that food shortages in the camps could threaten the peace process.
June UN appeals for aid for thousands of refugees heading home after the ceasefire. August Unita scraps its armed wing. “The war has ended,” proclaims Angola’s Defence Minister.
2003
2004
2005
2006
February UN mission overseeing the peace process winds up.
December The government says 300,000 foreign diamond dealers have been expelled.
June Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits, promises to extend more than $2bn in new credit, in addition to a $3bn credit line Beijing has already given Luanda.
August The government signs a peace deal with a separatist group in the northern enclave of Cabinda.
June Unita – now a political party – elects Isaias Samakuva as its new leader.
September Oil production reaches one million barrels per day.
October The UN refugee agency begins “final repatriation” of Angolans who fled the civil war to the neighbouring DR Congo.
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Angola is certainly making up for lost time considering the astonishing pace and scale of its reconstruction
Far left: The Mausoleum of the first President, Agostinho Neto. Left: A captured Portuguese 1950s fighter aircraft.
Elections
more are seeking opportunities in the rapidly growing African state). Neto died in 1979 and was succeeded by José Eduardo dos Santos, the current President, who maintained the MPLA’s socialist orientation but has gradually allowed market forces to play a part in the economic growth of Angola. The war between MPLA and Unita continued to rage on but with the collapse of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, Unita lost its main backer and in 2002, Savimbi was killed by government troops and Unita signed a ceasefire soon after. This brought the protracted war finally to an end. Angola now has the peace in which to rebuild its shattered economy, infrastructure and social systems. It is certainly making up for lost time considering the astonishing pace and scale of its reconstruction. n
Constitutional change
2008
2009
2010
September First parliamentary elections for 16 years.
March Pope Benedict celebrates mass in front of more than a million people in Luanda.
January Angola hosts African Nations Cup sporting event. Bus carrying Togo football team is attacked by Cabinda separatists. Parliament approves new constitution strengthening the Presidency and abolishing direct elections for the post.
2012 September President of DR Congo, Joseph Kabila, visits Angola. Ties between the two neighbours deteriorated in 2009 when Angola began expelling illegal Congolese immigrants and Congo retaliated.
September Governing MPLA wins a comfortable victory in parliamentary elections, guaranteeing another term in office for President Dos Santos. African Union observers deem the polls free and fair.
2014 October Angola launches a $5bn sovereign wealth fund to channel the country’s oil wealth into investment projects.
May First national census since 1970. Preliminary figures put population at 24.3 million.
Source: BBC
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Angola has been not only one of the fastest growing countries in Africa, it is among the fastest growing worldwide. Yet this remarkable growth has been achieved over only 14 years of peace and against a backdrop of virtually total destruction of all its economic factors.
Economy: Rising from the ashes
T
he collapse in oil prices has put pressure on Angola’s massive construction boom. The government has finally conceded that expenditure will have to be cut, as it seeks to cope with much lower revenues from its main source of income. Yet the cuts have also served to highlight the scale of infrastructural development in the country, which could help to diversify the economy and create much-needed jobs in the longer term. The big question is whether this spending is being well targeted in a nation that is seeking to heal the wounds of its long civil war. Centuries of colonial rule left their mark on the Angolan economy and continue to have a massive impact upon current investment plans. In common with other colonial powers, the Portuguese developed infrastructure and an economy designed to export raw materials to Europe, with little thought given to local economic development or trade with neighbouring territories. In particular, three west-east
railways were constructed to transport agricultural produce and mining commodities to the Atlantic Ocean ports of Namibe, Lobito and Luanda. Despite the five centuries of colonial government, Portuguese rule was relatively light in terms of development but heavy in terms of the human cost. Labour regulations were implemented that were close to bonded labour or slavery shamefully late in the history of human development. Moreover, effective colonial rule was concentrated on the coasts, in plantation areas and at the mines, leaving huge areas to fend for themselves while their traditional trading networks had been disturbed. The legacy of this pattern continues today, with many people speaking Portuguese as only a third or fourth language. The manner of Lisbon’s rule, its fascist government’s military attempts to retain control of the country and the haste of its withdrawal left the population in a dire situation. The 1974 Lisbon revolution was generally welcomed but triggered
the 27-year Angolan civil war, which was one of the main battlegrounds in the Cold War and fight against white supremacist rule in South Africa, with Cuban and South African troops among the combatants on the ground. Despite the emergence of the oil industry, Angola was a shattered country when the war ended in 2002. There was little national cohesion; the government had little influence in some parts of the country; and there was limited education and health service provision for the vast majority of people.
Left: The Bank of Angola.
The oil price challenge Angola’s economic fortunes have greatly improved over the past 13 years, largely as a result of high oil production and high prices. The ensuing investment has brought some material benefit to the bulk of the population but there is no doubting the scale of the infrastructural investment. All this brings us to the present day, with a strongly growing economy and a construction boom but low oil prices undermining further growth.
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EC O N O M Y Even today, hydrocarbons account for about 60% of GDP, 75% of government income and 95% of export revenues. Another 1.3% of export revenues are provided by diamond exports. Bumper oil revenues have transformed Angola into one of the strongest performing economies in the world over the past decade, with average annual economic growth of 10% over the period 2006–10, making it the third-biggest economy in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and South Africa. Luanda had targeted economic growth of 8.8% for 2015 but this may now be in doubt as a result of the fall in oil prices. The government stated last year that it would need an average oil price of $98/bbl to balance its 2015 budget but forecast an average of $81/bbl, accepting that it would need to borrow to make up the shortfall. Even in November it predicted a budget deficit of 2% this year and deficits for the three subsequent years but unless oil prices recover strongly and quickly – and they show no signs of doing so – this is likely to be overly optimistic. President José Eduardo dos Santos concedes that 2015 “will be economically difficult because of significantly low oil prices… Some public expenditures will be reduced and some projects postponed. Tougher state budget controls and financial discipline will have to be enforced to keep stability. “However, we will maintain our poverty-reduction policy. There are Angolans who live with very little or almost nothing,” he said. Details of the schemes to be shelved have not been released. Government has also attempted to increase revenue, particularly by cutting subsidies. The price of petrol was increased from 75 kwanza/litre to 90 kwanza/ litre ($0.88/litre) and diesel from 50 kwanza/litre to 60 kwanza/litre in December. Luanda’s relationship with the Chinese government has helped to soften the blow. In December, Beijing agreed to lend Sonangol $2bn to fund oil and gas projects in an attempt to boost revenues. If all oil producers adopted the same policy
then this would merely serve to further depress oil prices but the signs are that many oil companies – state owned and private – are reining in upstream investment. This takes Chinese lending to Luanda to $16.5bn since the end of the war. These loans are generally characterised as ‘oil for infrastructure’ funding and while this is broadly speaking fair, the whole picture is a little more complicated. Chinese firm Sinopec has a joint venture with Sonangol and produces Angolan oil in its own right. This relationship is a key plank of Beijing’s energy security policy and
China now imports about half of Angolan oil production. The government recognises the need to widen the country’s economic base. José Filomeno dos Santos, the son of the President and the chairman of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, told journalists: “We want to really diversify the portfolio, especially because of what is happening with the oil price. “Typically we will be looking at public private partnerships, concessions by states and also industrial investments, such as factories or assembly plants and so forth.”
Above: Luanda Port, the passenger ferry terminus. Opposite: The Via Expresso new highway at Cacuaco.
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The new Luanda International Airport, one of the biggest construction projects in the country, will be able to handle the biggest airliners in the world
Sector by sector OIL AND GAS Angola is the second-biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside Nigeria. Output stands at about 1.7m b/d and despite some recent exploration failures, a series of planned new projects should enable the government to achieve its ambition of boosting this figure above 2m b/d in the near future. Calculating all planned projects by BP, Total, Chevron and others, total output could exceed 2.5m b/d within seven years but almost all
of the additional production lies on deepwater areas that have much higher production costs. These are therefore among the most likely fields to be postponed or mothballed if the majors need to cut their costs as a result of the low oil price. However, the country has a great deal to be thankful about its deepwater maritime territory. Until the development of deepwater hydrocarbon technology, production stood at about 800,000 b/d, most of which was located onshore and in the shallow waters of Cabinda. As we discuss later, although deepwater blocks now yield most oil, Cabinda remains an important source of output. The development of the country’s gas resources was an obvious method of diversifying the national economy somewhat. An LNG plant was completed at Soyo two years ago by national oil company Sonangol and the oil majors that supply gas to it, but operational problems saw production halted and apparent design flaws are now being corrected at a cost of billions of dollars. RAIL AND ROAD TRANSPORT All three main railways were badly damaged during the civil war but their rehabilitation is now approaching completion. To take one example, China Hyway is carrying out the rehabilitation of the 860 km Moçâmedes Railway, which runs from the southern port of Namibe eastwards across southern Angola to the town of Menongue. A new spur line will also be built between Tchamutete and the Namibian border. The work has been financed by a series of loan agreements, including a $400m credit line from China Development Bank. In each case, roads are to be improved or constructed to connect main provincial towns to stations on the three railways. The Benguela Railway is also being rehabilitated beyond Angola’s eastern border to transport mining products from DR Congo and Zambia to Lobito for export, competing with the ports in South Africa and Tanzania in the process. In 2014, the governments of
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Angola, DR Congo and Zambia signed a deal for Benguela Railroad (CFB), Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer du Congo (SNCC) and Zambia Railways Limited (ZRL) to jointly maintain and operate the two branches into Zambia and DR Congo. The relevant border crossings will also be redeveloped in order to speed up the processing of cargo. PORTS In addition to rail redevelopment, the three terminus ports are also being redeveloped with a combination of private and state money. For instance, the Angolan Transport Minister, Augusto da Silva Tomás, has revealed that 120bn kwanza ($1.2bn) will be invested in the Port of Lobito in container, dry bulk and fuel facilities. He said: “This investment will make the port of Lobito more competitive, provide it with greater capacity and safety as well as making it a more active player in the internationalisation of Angolan companies and the Angolan economy.” Nevertheless, Luanda’s container terminal, which is operated by APM Terminals and Gestão de Fundos, is still the most important port in the country, handling almost 1m TEU, or 20-foot equivalent units, a year. A TEU is the industry standard container size. A new container terminal is to be constructed just 50 km north of the capital at Barra do Dande with deepwater berths allowing access for much larger vessels than Luanda. AIRPORTS Similarly, Angola’s airport infrastructure is being changed out of all recognition. The existing Aeroporto Internacional 4 de Fevereiro in Luanda has been modernised but the new Luanda International Airport, which is one of the biggest construction projects in the entire country, is being built further outside the city with two double runways, one of which will be able to handle the biggest airliners in the world. The lead contractor on the project is a Chinese state-owned company, CITIC Construction, which is scheduled to complete the work in
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Angolaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second-biggest source of revenue is diamond mining. The sector has gradually been brought under government control
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mid-2017, although there are some doubts about whether this can be achieved. In November, the Secretary of State for Construction, António Flor, said that Luanda International Airport is expected to handle at least 15m passengers a year, two-thirds of which would be international passengers, when it is fully operational, plus about 50,000 tonnes of cargo a year. Funding has been provided by the China International Fund and the airport will be operated by Emirates under a 10-year contract signed with Angola’s national airline TAAG. Speaking at a meeting of the Business Council for International Understanding in Chicago in November, Transport Minister Augusto da Silva Tomás said: “We have today under construction, around 40 km from the capital Luanda, a big and modern international airport, which will be one of the biggest in Africa. It has the capacity to receive aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.” Other, regional, airports have been refurbished, including in Uíge and Luena, while Dundo Airport in Lunda Norte Province is expected to reopen by the end of this year. National airport operator, ENANA, manages a network of 29 airports of various sizes around the country, and is in the process of upgrading them at a cost of $400m. A handful of new airports are also being built, including one at Ondjiva, in Cunene Province, to replace the old outdated airfield. ROADS As with railways, road connections with these new airport projects are being improved, including 89km of road to connect Ondjiva Airport to other towns in Cunene. The government has drawn up an ambitious programme of national road construction and upgrades, although funding levels have held back actual development. The national director of the office
of planning of the Ministry of Construction, Carlos Santos, estimates that 1,114 km of primary road was completed in 2014, out of a target of 3,500 km, although the pace of construction work increased during the course of the year. In addition, 646 km of secondary and 703 km of tertiary roads was constructed. While the work of Chinese and Brazilian firms in the construction industry has attracted most attention, Angolan companies have secured some contracts. In October, Omatapalo – Engenharia e Construção and Marsanto won contracts to build primary highways in Lunda Norte Province worth $135m. Omatapalo is to construct a 90km section of the EN 190 connecting the towns of Dundo and Nzagi, while Marsanto is to build an 87 km section of the EN 170 between Lubalo Camaxilo and the intersection with the EN 225. Work on both projects is expected to take two years. AGRICULTURE The bulk of the population works in agriculture but the country has not yet regained its pre-war status as a major agricultural exporter. It is hoped that the completion of the three lines will help the re-emergence of the agriculture sector in the eastern half of the country. Economic development over the past decade has been mainly concentrated in Luanda and, to a lesser extent, other coastal areas. Much of the food consumed in the cities is imported from around the world at huge cost, so improvements to rail and road infrastructure should enable much greater domestic production. Mine clearance continues in areas where farmers simply gave up growing commercial crops because of the poor security situation, the lack of a convenient market and the likelihood that war would force them off their land before crops could be harvested. Before independence, the main export crop was coffee, followed by maize, sisal and tobacco. The production of cash crops just about disappeared during the years of conflict, partly because many
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Portuguese landowners fled the country at independence. MINING Angola’s second-biggest source of revenue is diamond mining. During the civil war, most production was controlled by opposition Unita forces or by unregulated miners but the sector has gradually been brought under government control, with a number of larger companies – both state owned and private – now operating mines, although informal mining continues in many areas. The Ministry of Geology and Mines had set a target of generating $1.3bn from diamond mining in 2014 and this target was almost certainly reached, as revenues for the year to the end of November stood at $1.2bn. The country is the third-biggest diamond exporter in Africa. Angola was a significant iron ore exporter during the late colonial period, yielding 5.7m tonnes in 1973 but production stopped at independence and has not resumed on a large scale, largely because of the lack of transport capacity. However, the rehabilitation of the east-west railways should allow the mines to be redeveloped, new licences to be issued and exploration to recommence. BANKING As revealed in the African Business ‘Top 100 Banks’ report in October, there are now seven Angolan banks among the top 100 in Africa, the highest number ever. The top-ranked bank was Banco Espírito Santo Angola, which was the 26th biggest in Africa with Tier 1 Capital of $1,022m. However, regular readers may also note the lack of Angolan companies in our ‘Top 250 Companies’ table, highlighting the extent to which the economy is dominated by oil and state owned companies. The country’s Capital Markets Commission plans to launch a stock market, which may encourage initial public offerings by some parastatals but conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises without political connections remain difficult. n
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Housing the people of Angola
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here is no doubt that Luanda is one of the main centres of construction anywhere on the African continent. Cranes and cement mixers are everywhere, adding to the impression that this is a city on the rise. The accompanying congestion only adds to the traffic jams that have become a time consuming part of everyday life in the Angolan capital. Billions of dollars are being poured into real estate and – to a less extent – power, water and road schemes. One of the biggest challenges facing the country is the provision
of housing and employment, both of which are badly lacking, because of the war years as much as anything else. The conflict saw many people flee their homes, often for the relative safety of Luanda, and their temporary homes became informal settlements to match any elsewhere on the continent for their chaos. About three-quarters of the 4.3m inhabitants of Luanda live in musseques, or informal settlements. Most people live in shanty towns with no electricity, clean water or sewage facilities yet according to most surveys, Luanda is the most expensive city in the world for foreign, skilled workers to live in, with rents rang-
Below: The centralidade of Dundo in north Luanda.
ing from $10,000 to $18,000 a month rents for modern four bedroom homes. The government is banking on the construction of new cities to bridge the housing gap. Most are being built on the outskirts of the country’s biggest existing cities, particularly on the fringes of Luanda, where Km 44, Capari, Kilamba Kiaxi, Cacuaco and Zango are either under construction or planned. Most progress has thus far been made on the $3.5bn Kilamba Kiaxi project, which lies about 30km from the centre of Luanda. Despite the desperate housing shortage, many of the homes in Kilamba Kiaxi were unlived in for more than a year
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Under the National Programme for Urbanism and Habitat, the government expects the private sector to provide just 12% of all new homes, with the state funding the remainder because of the prices. In February 2013, the government decided to cut the price of small apartments from $125,000 to $70,000 in the new city in an effort to attract interest and the move paid off as middle class workers rushed to secure a modern property on the part-rent part-purchase option offered by the government. Kilamba Kiaxi is now a thriving, bustling town complete with excellent roads, schools, playing fields and other social amenities. Phases two and three, which will include commercial properties is expected to make this a selfsufficient city and relieve the pressure on Luanda. Currently, rents are around $150 per month for a fourbedroom flat. Residents are not officially permitted to sell or rent out their homes without authorisation but there does appear to be an informal trade in homes in the development. Many possible buyers complained about the uniformity of the properties but the first wave of purchasers have personalised their homes, painting the insides different colours and adding extensions, while others have set up shops, making Kilamba more of a community that it at first appeared. The starkness of new developments is often a problem on the best-planned housing projects.
State leadership The government is certainly playing a big role in directing the urban development of Luanda, including in the designation of residential areas. Under the National Programme for Urbanism and Habitat, the government expects the private sector to provide just 12% of all new homes, with the state funding the remainder. This figure seems to exclude the very many informal homes that are not financed by the government but – unless the oil price remains very low – it seems clear that the government will seek to take responsibility for driving the construction of mass housing. A self-build scheme in which the government provides the basic infrastructure and utilities like water, sewage, power and construction advice is an equally important plank in the government’s overall plan to house every family in the country. This task should be made a little easier by the completion of the country’s first national census since independence. The massive exercise in logistics took place last year and the results of the 7m returned questionnaires are still being processed but the National Statistics Institute estimates the Angolan population at 24m, a
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relatively low figure for the size of the country. The final results should provide details on the size and structure of the population across the country, the type of homes they live in, location of employment and means of transport thereby helping with long term planning. This information will be more important in Angola than in most other countries because of the topdown nature of the government’s approach. It has been reported in Angola that many of the social housing projects are designed to compensate people for the loss of their own informal homes. It remains to be seen how many of them will be given for free in practice but hundreds of thousands of low-cost homes have certainly been built. The Zango scheme on the southeast edge of Luanda alone provides homes for about 200,000 people. The houses are basic and single story, and appear to be modelled on similar properties in South Africa, where millions of low-cost homes have been built by the government to provide modern properties for those previously living in informal settlements. Indeed, Angola appears to have chosen the same solution for roughly the same problem as South Africa. In November, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China agreed to provide a $120m loan to help finance the construction of the $150m Phase 1 of the Futungo de Belas project in Luanda. The scheme will create residential and tourist accommodation, plus sporting, trade and tourism facilities. The money will be used for the construction of real estate but also the development of power, water and wastewater infrastructure on a scheme is that is expected to be
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EC O N O M Y developed in three phases over the next decade. Less frenetic in provinces The pace of construction is also greatly increased in the provinces but is far less frenetic. In Ndalatando, the capital of Kwanza Norte Province, Sonangol Imobiliária is building 4,000 apartments in three, four and five storey blocks to provide homes for more than 30,000 people. The entire scheme is due to be completed by the end of 2016. There are large Chinese built housing projects in Uíge, Benguela, Cacuaco, Lobito, Cabinda and other sites. Elsewhere, Portuguese firm Tomás de Oliveira has been awarded a $125m contract to build 1,000 houses in Lunda Sul Province for the Pérola Verde Project Cooperative. What is lacking are small and medium-sized local companies that can undertake smaller scale projects as and when required. This would create a far healthier construction industry that would be more receptive to local needs. However, aside from a much more developed skills base, this would require a more attractive investment environment with a greater emphasis on the private sector. Gated communities While the need is greatest among the very poor, a lot of private sector investment is being made into high-cost luxury accommodation, either in tall apartment blocks or gated communities of the kind that are becoming increasingly popular around the world. Individual homes or blocks are located within their own grounds, sometimes with common facilities such as gardens or a leisure centre, but also with shared security. This can include high walls, electric fences, armed guards, dogs and regulated entry, which collectively can provide a sense of safety but also of living in isolation. There is little doubt that such compounds, which are particularly common in South Africa, help to emphasise the difference between rich and poor In Angola, many of the gated developments specifically cater to foreign workers. To take one example, Angolan firm Operatec 44 african business | african cities | march 2015
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H o u s i n g has built the Malembo Development Centre in Cabinda Province to house oil workers, including those employed in the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company industrial park. Scheduled for completion this year, it has been developed at a cost of $100m and will provide homes for 1,440 people, while supplying them with a swimming pool, gym, games room, canteen and associated services. The oil industry has helped to drive up the cost of property. Not only do oil workers earn many times more than the average worker in most other sectors in Angola but oil companies know that they will be able to sell any properties they buy in the future and so are prepared to pay high prices. Similarly, the gated Paradiso Condominium Development in Luanda Sul is marketed as being close to the Chevron, ExxonMobil and Total Oil housing complexes and the Sonangol Convention Centre. Each home has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a private swimming pool, plus common sports facilities plus daily transport to and from the centre of Luanda. This is becoming an increasingly popular option as traffic conditions in the Angolan capital become ever more congested. The development of the Angola LNG plant in Soyo in the far north of Angola has triggered an increase in residential construction in the town to house both oil workers and those attracted to Soyo in search of work in ancillary services. Omatapalo Engenharia e Construção Civil, for example, is half way through the construction of a new complex with 400 homes about 20km outside the town. The scheme also includes a school, hospital, library and sports facilities, and is being developed by Sonangol. Integrated developments Many real estate projects include office space and leisure facilities as well as residential accommodation. One of the biggest ventures is Comandante Gika, which is under construction in the Alvalade district of Luanda. Total investment costs of $820m will provide two apartment blocks,
Left: Construction workers and, above, the Chinese influence. There are large Chinese-built housing projects in Uíge, Benguela, Cacuaco, Lobito, Cabinda and other sites.
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two office blocks, a five-star hotel and the Luanda Shopping Mall, which will be the biggest shopping centre in Angola when completed. Apartments in one of the blocks are already on sale, with funding provided by a mix of domestic and international companies. Similar ventures include the Sky Tower, which includes residential, office and retail accommodation. Completed in 2013 at a cost of 65bn kwanza ($675m) after four years’ work, it was built by Teixeira Duarte for developer Escom, with finance from Banco Espírito Santo Angola. Property prices are also affected by the high cost of construction materials. Cement and other basic materials are produced locally but fixtures and fittings, including plumbing and electrical infrastructure, are usually imported at great cost. However, in October, the government and local construction firms set up a technical group to investigate the country’s ability to provide building materials and to consider methods of improving the rate and range of supply. The Minister for Industry, Bernarda Martins, has also suggested the creation of an Association of Building Materials Entrepreneurs. The Director of the Industrial Development Institute of Angola, António Dias da Silva, commented: “These industries must continue to work and to invest, particularly in innovation and the quality of their
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products, so that the market can absorb all that they produce.” Some progress has been made on manufacturing household appliances within the country. In 2013, an Angolan company called Inovia set up a factory with 200 workers at a cost of $38m. The plant manufactures electronic household goods and is expected to double its workforce when it comes fully on stream. Martins said that the plant was “an example of supporting the national economy to reduce its dependence on the oil sector in terms of its contribution to GDP, to exports and to tax revenues”. Lucy Corkin, a sovereign risk analyst at Rand Merchant Bank, said: “We are seeing the beginnings of an emerging middle class in Luanda. The challenge is that Angola’s social and physical infrastructure is currently not yet properly equipped to deal with their demands in terms of goods and services.” Although government research in 2012 calculated that the country lacked 1.7m homes, it is not clear if the number of properties being built is sufficient to compensate for population growth, never mind erode the shortfall in accommodation. About 65,000 new homes were built in Angola under the government’s National Urbanism and Habitat Programme in 2013, the most recent year for which full figures are available. In many ways, the Angolan real estate market is still at a very early stage of development. Mortgages are difficult to obtain and estate agents or realtors mainly concern themselves with selling new, high-value properties, or even those still on the drawing board, because there is very little turnover of residential real estate. Many homes are bought by oil companies, which continue to use them when their original employees move on. It will be interesting to see whether property holds its value when older homes begin to have to compete with older properties. At the other end of the scale, it seems likely that cheaper homes will pass from generation to generation within individual families, so here too there could be limits to the growth of the real estate sector. n
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Kilamba, near the capital Luanda, is the first and most advanced of the novas centralidades (new cities) springing up all over Angola. While all the projects have their own unique features, Kilamba is considered the model both in terms of construction as well as management. Anver Versi paid a visit.
Where Life Lives
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ilamba is only some 30km from Luanda but it takes far longer to get there than you would expect. The first challenge is to make your way out of Luanda before you can hit the highway. The traffic is permanently excruciatingly slow. Initially, I thought that was because of traffic jams due to accidents but after a while you realise that it is caused simply because of the huge volume of vehicles funnelling
through roads not designed to handle a volume of this magnitude. But the traffic does move with drivers expertly manoeuvring their vehicles into the tightest of spaces to gain a metre or two and then repeating the process. It is all done without the rancour and bad temper that characterises a lot of African road use. Traffic jams have now become ubiquitous all over Africa. When you peer into other cars held up in the traffic, you see passengers busy working their mobiles or tablets. “The car
is my second office,” one of my acquaintances told me. If you know you will spend a lot of time stuck in your vehicle, you might as well make the best of it and use the time to work. The roads are being rationalised and there are plans to construct modern transport arteries that will include flyovers, metros and even overhead monorails. But until all the mega construction projects currently under way finally complete and settle down, road traffic in Luanda will continue to crawl along.
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We caught a glimpse of the new city while we were still some distance away and had to catch my breath. I was not prepared for the sight of the skyline that rose like a spectre out of the early morning mist
Nevertheless, the crammed roads give you a good idea of the population density in the city and why the most logical urban expansion decision has been to create the novas centralidades rather than tinker around with the city itself. Kilamba is not a satellite town like the new centres that have grown up along the expansion of Thika Road in Nairobi or even the rise of Sandton as the new business centre of Johannesburg. Rather it has been conceived from day one as a brandnew city, which in time will become self-sufficient in amenities, utilities and services. It will not only take the population pressure away from Luanda, it will generate its own economy. The quality of housing, schools, playing fields, commercial space, parks, public transport systems, roads and traffic control systems has been set at a very high benchmark.
With its socialist orientation, the MPLA administration of President José Eduardo dos Santos is determined to provide the citizens with the best standards of living its considerable wealth will allow. (See interview with minister of Urbanism and Habitat.) Once we were clear of Luanda, it was a short run along the wide, perfectly maintained highway to Kilamba. We caught a glimpse of the new city while we were still some distance away and had to catch my breath. I don’t know what I had expected to see but I was not quite prepared for the sight of the skyline that rose like a spectre out of the early morning mist. The solid mass of buildings, clothed in pale shades of blue, green and cream, seemed to stretch for kilometres along the highway. Although we knew that this was a
Above, left to right: Nurses Georgina Máquina, Lourdes Mussungo and Dr Filomena Neto at the Kilamba Health Centre. Right, top, a child being vaccinated. Below: Godlive Luvualu, Kilamba General Director of Health.
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The pedestrian crossings were wide and clearly marked and, unlike virtually everywhere else in Africa, drivers actually stopped when the lights turned red PROFILE
Kilamba Health Centre (Centro de Saúde de Kilamba)
large undertaking, the scale of the project left us astounded. Once we turned into the complex, we seemed to have jumped forward in time. The roads were beautifully laid out with neat and clear signage. The traffic lights were state of the art, equipped with digital countdowns in seconds so you knew when the lights would change. I have so far seen this feature only in Scandinavia in Europe, and Singapore and Tokyo in Asia. The pedestrian crossings were wide and clearly marked and, unlike virtually everywhere else in Africa, drivers actually stopped when the lights turned red to allow pedestrians to cross in complete safety. The only exception was one foolish driver who charged through the red light but our driver assured us that he would not get far. He said roadside cameras, which monitor
This impressive-looking health centre, the first of several to be rolled out in the near future, was officially inaugurated in September 2014 by the Governor of Luanda, Graciano Domingos, and the Angolan Health Minister, José van-Dúnem, but had actually opened to the public in April. Dr Godlive Luvualu, General Director of the Centre, and Dr Filomena Neto, administrator from the DPSL (Direcção Provincial de Saúde de Luanda – Health Provincial Directorate of Luanda), showed us around the establishment. Dr Luvualu, who obtained her medical degree in Ukraine, said that the health centre, converted from a crèche, has a bed capacity for 30 patients. “Besides general medical services, paediatrics, maternity, prenatal care and family planning, we are also setting up X-ray and laboratory services,” she said. In the well-equipped laboratory, we saw nurses Georgina Máquina and Lourdes Mussungo using a microscope to analyse samples. “We plan to provide free prenatal ultrasound scans, general radiology as well as urine and blood testing to the community here,” Dr Luvualu said. During the visit we observed nurse Marisa Nair Falcão administering vaccines to several young children who were patiently waiting with their mothers for their turn to be attended. “We are serving about 200 patients per day,” she said, “but soon we hope to increase capacity to 300. Major complaints are malaria, diarrhoea and hypertension. We treat the most serious cases for 72 hours and, if there are no significant signs of recovery, we them transfer them by ambulance to the Central Hospital of Luanda.” In September, the centre joined a vast national programme to combat measles and polio. The campaign aimed to provide vaccination to 7.7m children, aged from six months to 10 years, until the end of 2014. “We are also vaccinating Kilamba’s children from six months to five years against polio, tetanus and hepatitis B, including the administration of vitamin A,” added Dr Filomena Neto. The centre has a staff of 54 professionals, of which s26 are nurses and four are doctors (two Angolan and two Cuban).
speed limits, would catch him out and there was also a system for phoning a number alerting the authorities that a traffic violation had occurred. I found it hard to believe this was still Africa! We pulled up at a bus station to ask for directions. It had a shelter and benches to sit on. As in the rest of Africa, the ubiquitous minivan taxis are the chief means of transport for the majority although buses also ply the routes. Motorcycles, lovingly taken care of by their young owners, provide individual taxi services for a small charge. The minivans here in Angola are sky-blue and in far better condition than their battered counterparts elsewhere on the continent. The roads throughout the town are laid out in a grid pattern, north to south and east to west. Close up, we could see brand-new eightand four-storey blocks, tastefully painted in two-tone pastel colours. Blues, greens, browns and cream dominated. Each block was provided with sufficient parking space for each apartment. There was the beginning of green areas and small front gardens. Along the wider main streets there were restaurants, cafes, shops, hairdressers and other retail outlets. We had arrived when most people were at work and children at school so the streets looked fairly deserted. We eventually hooked up with our translator, a young lady called Tatiana, who told us she lived in Kilamba with her mother in an apartment with three bedrooms and a living room. She had a mortgage for 25 years and I believe her monthly rent is around $150. Guided tour We made our way to the administration offices, where the new city’s chief administrators, Francisco Changane, Djamila Franco and Óscar Veríssimo da Costa ran us through the history of the project and later gave us a guided tour. Djamila Franco, Kilamba’s Urban Management director, told
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us she is an architect involved in the research and planning of potential new cities – or centralidades. “I joined the National Reconstruction Office, created in October 2004 as a supra-ministerial department directly accountable to President José Eduardo dos Santos,” she recalled. “At the time, my team was tasked to identify new construction areas – taking in consideration a number of factors, such as the structure of the terrain, occupancy levels and proximity to the main urban centres.” The Office, she said, included professionals from all sectors: economists, architects, civil engineers, sociologists, anthropologists.“We wanted to create a totally Angolan concept.” The master plan, Djamila Franco explained, had been designed by an institute in China, but to Angolan specifications. “For example, President Dos Santos instructed the designers to increase the classic 100 sq metres for a three-bedroom flat to 110 sq metres as most African families are composed of up to six, seven members.” But translating the master plan to the reality on the ground threw up a host of problems and issues, some of which could not have been anticipated. First of all, there was the issue of the location of the new city. It had to be close to Luanda to persuade people to move to the new residential blocks while they still earned their living from the capital. But it could not be too close otherwise the whole purpose of the exercise would be defeated. It had to be in close proximity to reliable sources of water and power and the site had to be ‘construction friendly’, i.e. without major drawbacks such as swamps or an infirm sub-structure that would lead to building subsidence. Although the government owns all the land in Angola (bar some historic properties), it was important that the construction would not cause any undue distress to the people already occupying the area. “The site we chose did not have many people living on it but there were some,” Ms Franco told us. The Ministry of Culture was
The master plan, Djamila Franco explained, had been designed by an institute in China, but to Angolan specifications brought in to assess the impact of the construction on the lives of the people who occupied the area. It worked out a compensation and relocation package that was mutually satisfactory – and the initial ground-breaking could begin. This was going to be a massive project right from the beginning. Although post-Apartheid South Africa had come close, nothing on this scale had been attempted in Africa before. The plan was to be able to house half a million people when all three phases of the project had been completed. The only country in modern times that had successfully executed projects of this scale and complexity was China. Chinese contractors, architects, surveyors, engineers (water, electrical, civil, mechanical, sewerage, etc), fitters, painters, gardeners and others of like ilk had become masters of planning and executing projects of this size. The experience, gained over the years as the Asian giant rolled out its own astonishing urban revolution, had
Clockwise from top: Kilamba housing; Djamila Franco, Kilamba’s Urban Management director; Óscar Verissimo da Costa, Political Advisor for the Kilamba Administration Office; new housing blocks in Kilamba; and the interior of a new apartment.
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Little Princes Infants’ Centre
(Centro Infantil Pequenos Príncipes)
Chinese construction companies, combining age-old building traditions with modern techniques, are busy completely reshaping the continent of Africa
This crèche and pre-school unit in the heart of Kilamba was a large establishment with big airy rooms. The director, Lurdes Franco, and Education Director, Fátima de Assis, showed us around the premises, inaugurated in 2013. The centre looks after 200 children from three months to five years old. It has nurseries with toilets and bathrooms, classrooms, reading rooms, fine arts rooms, a nurse post and a refectory. “Children who remain here during the day have a routine that combines discipline and fun, with pedagogical moments and playful moments, sleep time and meal time,” headmistress Lurdes Franco explained. The staff at Little Princes consists of six teachers and 20 teacherassistants. In addition, there are helpers who are on hand to take charge of the toddlers when they are brought there in the mornings by the parents. They also look after the children whose parents can only come to collect them after the centre is officially closed for the day. The centre opens before sunrise at around 5 am. “Most of the children come here very sleepy and continue to sleep until about 7.30 am when the crèches really come into operation. The flexible schedule is for the benefit of those parents who work in Luanda and, in order to reach their places of work at 8 am, have to leave Kilamba no later than 5 am because of the heavy traffic,” explained Lurdes Franco. Educational Director Fátima de Assis has attended a number of workshopcourses in the UK and is applying educational planning methodologies similar to those in Britain. “I have learnt much there, especially in the Special Education Needs (SEN) area.” She guided us to a cheerful room full of huggable toys designed to accommodate the needs of children with behavioural and learning difficulties. “We are trying to get the ratio of one SEN child to one teacher assistant and learning about strategies to alleviate the stress that some of these children go through.”
created a cadre of professionals and workers uniquely honed to work as one mega-unit and complete projects over mind-bogglingly short time frameworks. In pursuit of its own dreams, China had become a very important trading partner with Angola, buying oil and selling a vast variety of manufactures. In the meanwhile, Chinese construction companies, combining age-old building traditions with modern techniques, were busy completely reshaping the continent of Africa (and other regions as well) as they erected new stadia, public buildings, bridges, ports, airports, roads, railways, malls and residential units. It was a logical progression, therefore, that Angola and China would strike a deal that would be mutually beneficial. The estimated cost of the project was put at around $3.5bn. The financing would be raised through a Chinese credit line and repaid in kind using Angolan oil. The main contract went to the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) and the construction time frame was set at an unbelievable three years for the completion of Phase One of three. “In August 2008, the first stone of the development was laid by the President,” recalled Franco. “Three years later, on 11th July 2011, the President returned for the inauguration of the new city,” she said. Against all expectations, the Chinese had cleared the land, installed the infrastructure – water, power, sewage, roads, lights – and erected the buildings in three years flat. The logistics involved just in getting the thousands of tons of cement, steel, wood, glass, pipes, wiring, cranes, dredgers, diggers, rollers and the thousand-and-one other items of equipment and raw material needed to construct the new town must have been awesome to behold. Later, we were to get the opportunity of seeing another town in the process of being constructed and I must say I had to agree with the observation by one contractor I met that the scale of the works must have been similar to the construction of the Egyptian
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pyramids by the ancient Pharaohs. We quite often take the great Chinese construction tide sweeping over Africa and half the world for granted and in fact tend to look for faults, ignoring the huge expertise, organisation and sheer hard work that goes into the construction of these mega projects. That said, there is no doubt that some of the work done by the Chinese, and contractors from other countries for that matter, is shoddy. In the UK, there is a long-running TV programme specialising in trying to catch out ‘cowboy builders’ who make a mess of the projects they are contracted for. This is despite a raft of laws and regulations designed to ensure that such people do not go anywhere near a construction project. So the quality of the work does not depend on the nationality of the contractor but on the standards of performance they have set for themselves. It would also be expecting too much for a completely fault-free mass housing project on this scale. Structural faults only become apparent after the buildings have ‘settled’ on their foundations and adapted to the weather and pattern of use. Kilamba is still far too new for any sort of sweeping statement about the build quality to be justified. At any rate, as elsewhere in the world, the contractors are under legal obligation to make good any structural damage. The dream comes true The inauguration, in 2011, the administrators told us, had been a momentous event in the whole country. The majority of the younger population had experienced nothing but the dangers and privations of war; and the only memories the older generations still carried from before the war was one of exclusion from the good things in life during the Portuguese colonial period. “Even for us who had been with the programme from the beginning,” said Óscar Veríssimo da Costa, political adviser for the Kilamba Administration Office, “to
see a beautiful new city rise from the ground where there had been nothing there before, was like a dream. We were afraid we would wake up and discover that it had all been nothing more than a dream. But it was not – it was there, real, just as the President had promised.” Kilamba sprawls over 5,200 hectares. It is divided into 24 ‘quarters’ and consists of 715 building blocks housing 20,002 apartments. There are 24 crèches, nine primary schools, eight secondary schools, one health centre and 50 km of roads. The utilities are as sleekly modern as you can get. The mighty Kwanza River provides both drinking and utility water. We visited a wastewater treatment plant that processes 35,000 cubic metres daily and a drinking-water treatment plant with a capacity of 40,000 cubic metres per day. A series of power plants ensure that, unlike in most African cities, including Luanda, electricity supply is uninterrupted and there have been no instances of outages so far. The telecommunications system seemed to work perfectly and when it got dark, street lamps and other auxiliary lights flooded the city in light. Although each block had a security guard, we were told that criminality was practically absent. The city came to life in the evenings when workers and students returned home and, after dinner, went out to socialise, play basketball or football or jog during the coolest part of the day. We noticed that Angolans have a great fondness for plants and flowers. The balconies of virtually all apartments seemed resplendent with bright flowers and fresh greenery. There was no litter anywhere. There were rubbish bins located at short intervals and we learnt that littering was considered a serious social offence and could also attract a fine. It was delightful to see that the plague of plastic shopping bags, which scar so many of our cities, has so far been kept at bay and one hopes that the civic authorities and
‘To see a beautiful new city rise up where there had been nothing before, was like a dream. We were afraid we would wake and discover that it had all been nothing more than a dream’
Right: The Escola de Ensino Primário 16 de Junho and, top, its principal, Georgina Abraão.
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16th June Primary School (Escola de Ensino Primário 16 de Junho) The principal of the primary school, Georgina Abraão, a tall, athletic figure who was once the star of Angola’s national ladies basketball team, proudly showed us around her sparkling new primary school. Class size are between 25-30 students – “just as in Europe” she pointed out but the school caters for around 1,000 children studying in shifts. While most of the students live in Kilamba, a considerable number come from outlying areas. “We are introducing the use of school uniforms, subsidised by the government and feel very special for being chosen to launch the Meu Kamba (‘My Friend’ in Kimbundu language), a national programme to supply computers to primary schools.” So far, she said, the school had received 80 laptops that help children to learn Portuguese, maths and science. “We want to contribute to the transformation of the traditional educational models and the IT is a great motivator. It has improved school attendance and the quality of learning. Classrooms run around a large square courtyard. They were neat and well stocked with desks, chairs and teaching aids. In addition to a basketball court, there was a large playing field for soccer and athletics. The children were bright-eyed, curious and boisterous but clearly well disciplined. They told us they just ‘loved’ to come to school because it was so much fun.
the residents themselves will ensure that it is never allowed to get a foothold. We were taken to see a model apartment on the ground floor of one of the blocks. It consisted of three bedrooms, a living room which extended into a dining area, a good-sized kitchen, bathroom and toilet. It was surprisingly more spacious on the inside than it had appeared on the outside. The finish, in terms of flooring, light fixtures, window frames, doors and so on was fine and tasteful without being extravagant. The smart, modern lifts worked silently and very efficiently. There was plenty of storage space and behind the kitchen there was a special little area where washed clothes could be hung to dry in the sun and wind. This is an important addition as nothing is more unsightly that seeing buildings draped in washing from every available nook and cranny. (Washing and drying machines are considered an unnecessary expense in most of Africa as washing can be easily done by hand and drying clothes in the open air is a far better alternative to machine drying them). The typical configuration for the apartments is a reasonably large master bedroom, and two decentsized but smaller bedrooms for the children and perhaps a parent or a visiting relative. The four-bedroom configuration, I was told, can easily sleep seven to eight people – a very desirable arrangement in Africa given large family connections. But it is one thing to look at a model flat, quite another to actually live in one. Fortunately for us, an architect from the Ministry of Urbanism and Habitat, who had been our companion and guide throughout the trip, invited us for an impromptu meal in his apartment in Kilamba. Angolan hospitality is legendary and despite the last-minute decision to have a meal at his place rather than sit in the evening traffic back to Luanda, his wife and daughter turned out a meal fit for royalty. We had the opportunity of interacting with his lively young
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sons, who were fascinated with our photographer’s elaborate camera equipment and discussed football, basketball, computers and other matters of concern to them at their age. This gave us the opportunity to experience what living in one of the apartments was like. There was certainly plenty of room for the kids to throw themselves about and also find a place for their posters, work tables, beds, wardrobes, toys and other paraphernalia. Our friend’s wife told us she was delighted with their apartment and the sense of community it provided. The low monthly outlay meant that the family was able to purchase all their utilities – refrigerator, cooker, television, furniture and so on – without building up too much debt. The children went to the local schools and the lady of the house worked at the Agostinho Neto University not too far away. They were able to get to school and work without getting snarled up in traffic “except for poor him,” she said, pointing to her husband, who works in Luanda. This gave them valuable free time to do things as a family. The town came alive in the evening. The streets which had been deserted earlier were now full of people. “You should come here on a weekend,” my hosts urged us. 54 african business | african cities | march 2015
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Professional Training Centre BN-Angola CITIC
The town came alive in the evening. The streets which had been deserted earlier were now full of people. ‘You should come here on a weekend,’ my hosts urged us. ‘This place really rocks’
From top left: At the Professional Training Centre BN-Angola CITIC, students (left to right) Maria Cabaça Nazambe, Teresa Alberto and Matilde Raimundo; a classroom; hairdressing students: and Frederik José dos Santos, Educational Coordinator.
“This place really rocks.” Later, on our way out of the complex, we drove past a basketball court where we saw two of the boys totally engaged in a game of basketball under the lights – a far, far cry from the congested inner city of Luanda where they had lived earlier. The stampede We continued our visit to Kilamba the following day. Óscar Veríssimo da Costa, political adviser for the Kilamba Administration Office, told us that currently, some 70,000 people were living in the new city. This represented roughly 70% of the total capacity available in Phase One. What about the stories in the international media of Kilamba being a ‘ghost town’ with nobody living in it, I asked him. “Well, it is certainly not a ghost town now,” he laughed. “Unless all those people you saw are ghosts!” He did admit however, that soon after completion, Kilamba did look like a ghost town for a while. “Just after the project was finished in July 2011, homes were being sold for between $125,000 and $200,000,” he said. “But the price was far too high for the small middle class that exists in Luanda.” As a result of the war, the virtual desertion of the agricultural
One of the most impressive aspects of the Kilamba new city project was the attention being paid to developing professional skills. The aim is twofold: one is to provide vocational training for employment purposes but primarily it is to ensure that there is a cadre of skilled workers to help maintain and carry out repairs on the housing project itself. This is very much in keeping with the trend in China where such schemes have been very successful. The Chinese place so much importance on it that the centre was inaugurated in May 2014 by the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, and the Vice-President of Angola, Manuel Domingos Vicente. Educational Coordinator, Frederik José dos Santos, who showed us around, said that the training centre was a private initiative of the Chinese company CITIC, the contractor who built Kilamba. The centre aims to train young Angolans from the municipality of Belas, where Kilamba is located, in several of skills needed to maintain the city: masonry, mechanics, electrics, plumbing, refrigeration, painting, gardening, office administration, cleaning, cooking, sewing and many other specialised activities. In one classroom, we saw youngsters learning about elevator maintenance. They all wore uniforms provided by the centre and at the end of their courses, they will receive tool kits so they can start their own micro businesses in case they don’t find immediate employment. Frederik led us to a fully equipped ICT suite, where a dozen students were being trained in administrative programs and applications. Teenager Maria Cabaça told us she wants to study English, travel the world and then settle in Kilamba, “my ideal city of the future” to work and raise a family. “I bet my ambitions are not so different from working class girls in Europe and elsewhere”, she said. We also visited a number of workshops: cooking, gardening, car maintenance and repairs and a very lively sewing and decorating class presided over by professor Elizabete Manuel. The class, composed largely of ladies of all ages, were busy turning out beautiful handcrafts for the Christmas season just ahead. She was gracious enough to give each of us, as presents, some of the items that her students had made and with a great smile said: “Welcome to the crafty women of Angola.” Spirits were visibly high.
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countryside and the suspended economic development, Angola is one of the most unequal places on earth in terms of income. Those who have the skills, the capital, the capacity and the connections, earn large incomes. Earlier, we had visited a professional family who rented a 4-level apartment in the upmarket Talatona district. Rents in this gated community, we were told, ranged from $12,000 to 18,000 per month. Against this, Óscar Veríssimo da Costa explained, young professionals making their way in the world, just cannot afford such exorbitant rents. “They live under tin roofs under makeshift structures,” he said. “They dream of escaping but until now, did not have the means to do so.” Kilamba opened up the opportunity to completely change their mode of living “but since the prices were so high, they were generally unable to acquire any line of credit to pay the required rents in advance. “So, although the prices of the apartments in Kilamba were relatively very low, the population segment targeted, young professionals, were just unable to find the money to move in. So, yes, we did have a ghost town.” In early 2013, President Dos Santos decided that enough was enough –the object of the exercise, he is reported to have said to Cabinet, had been to provide much-needed housing for the population, not to break even or make financial profits. He supervised a set of new regulations that dropped the price from a minimum of $125,000 to a new minimum of only $70,000 for a T3 (a three-bedroom apartment of about 110 square metres) and a maximum of $180,000 for bigger flats, instead of the previous $200,000. The government created a finance subsidiary, Sonip, from the stateowned oil giant, Sonangol, to provide mortgages covering 90% of the cost over a period of 10-30 years and fixed the interest rate at only 2.2%. The effect was electric. No sooner were the new measures made public
than an avalanche of applications descended on the administrators. Apartments were being snapped up as soon as the applications could be processed. “The demand was so huge that the administration came under severe pressure to process applications. But checks had to be made to prevent fraud, or speculators taking advantage of the cheap housing and so on before we could clear the applications and the would-be buyers could get their mortgages from Sondip,” Da Costa explained. He said that since they only had the capacity to process around 1,200 applications per day, people were queuing up for days on end just to fill in their applications. “This has created new job opportunities,” he added. “We have about 7,000 young professionals working in Kilamba, 1,500 security workers, 5,000 housekeepers and are trying to attract more business from the private sector. We also learnt that as a result of public criticism that Sonip was taking too long to process mortgage applications, the function has just been passed on a specialised real estate company, Imogestin. “The building of this great city will be a model for economies both in emerging and established economies due not only to its great success in providing affordable mass housing but also in helping to counter unemployment and growing the local economies.” Where life lives But this is just the start of something even bigger. “We have already started construction of Phase Two,” Djamila Franco said. “We are building 7,000 apartments and 5,000 semidetached houses and soon will start constructing one hospital, four health clinics, 12 health centres, three financial institutions, several post offices, garages, police stations, fire stations, parking lots, churches, a cemetery and many other facilities.” We were able to see some of the half-completed semi-detached
PROFILE
The magnificent national Roller Hockey stadium of Angola near Kilamba Angola staged the World Roller Hockey Championship in 2013 in its ultra-modern stadium outside Luanda. This is one of two other stadiums – one in Malange and the other in Namibe – that cater for this sport, which is growing in popularity not only in the country but throughout world. The 2013 championship was won by Spain and the event was televised live to half the world. One of the outstanding features of this arena is that, at night, a system of lighting makes its outside walls glow and change colours – a feature that can be seen for miles around.
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Urban planners in Africa should make tracks to Angola to see what can be done with determination and fierce national pride
houses and they were large and attractively designed with their own drives and gardens. These will obviously be priced much higher and aimed at senior, better-paid professionals and civil servants. “The main aim is to amalgamate all the income classes within the same community without creating barriers between them,” Da Costa explained. “At the moment, about 6,000 workers – 1,734 Chinese and 4,754 Angolans, are involved in the construction of 2,780 single-family houses and townhouses and 5,220 T3 type apartments that should be ready in the second semester of 2015,” Franco added. “In Phase Three, we will develop more services for the new community. We plan to build an underground and a train network, sporting areas, clubs, banks, hotel. The city continues to grow at all levels,” she said. Phases Two and Three will see a far greater involvement by the private sector as a brand-new CBD begins to emerge and this will extend into Phase Three with its greater emphasis on entertainment and leisure.
Far left: Abílio Forwelos, Stadium Manager. Left and above: The Luanda Stadium – the arena and one of the entrances.
Kilamba is easily the most ambitious single project currently in the works in Africa. Its slogan ‘This is where life lives’ cannot be more appropriate. It is being replicated in various Angolan provinces where many of the projects have been completed. This is a country that is seriously reconstructing itself on the run, as it were, and transforming from a war-battered nation into what could well be the pearl of Africa all within one generation. It is an extraordinary feat by any measure and all urban planners all over the continent should make tracks to Angola to see for themselves just what can be done with determination and a fierce national pride. n
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Angola is probably the hottest investment destination in Africa today. In addition to the vast investments made in the oil and now, gas sectors, private foreign investment is flooding into several sectors, including infrastructure and real estate. All investment into the country is handled by the Angolan National Private Investment Agency. Anver Versi met the dynamic head of the organisation.
Africa’s hottest investment destination ANIP CEO, Maria Luísa Abrantes
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s Maria Luísa Abrantes, the CEO of the Angolan National Private Investment Agency, ANIP, is one of the busiest people in Angola. Her daily appointments diary is bursting with entries – with good reason: Angola is now perhaps the hottest investment destination in Africa. Despite the huge pressure on her time, she cleared a slot for me as she was keen to set the record straight on Angola’s investment potential and the procedures involved. Bang on the scheduled appointment time, to the second, we were ushered into her tastefully decorated office. A very short while later, looking fresh and attractive, she
bounded in, shook our hands enthusiastically and got down to business immediately – but made a couple of jokes to ease the tension and make us feel comfortable. I began to see why she has made such an impression on investors coming to the country and calling on her office as a first stop. Everything, from the organisation’s reception office to her person, exudes efficiency, control and dispatch. ANIP provides the framework for Angola’s investment policy – both foreign and national – and walks investors through the raft of regulations that govern the nation’s investment code. It deals with all investments into the country, whether from giant global oil and construction companies to much more humble outfits providing much-
needed goods or services to Angola. The country’s investment policy, she said, was rooted in the MPLA’s socially oriented policies and always placed the welfare of the citizens at the top of the agenda. It is also a holistic policy based on employing revenues from oil to regenerate and accelerate growth in all other sectors. “Take agriculture, for instance,” she said. “Angola has about 12% of Africa’s water resources and vast areas of arable lands. Our agricultural output before the war was one of the most impressive on the continent. We would like to regain that position – and of course also produce for our own populations and our neighbours.” She points out that Angola is also very well positioned geographically.
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I N T E R V I E W “We are a gateway from the Atlantic Ocean to both Central and Southern Africa. For the investor, Angola opens up a market that far exceeds our current population of 24m; the market that can be accessed is around 100m when you take into account DR Congo, Zambia and all the other countries that lie in close proximity to Angola.” She added that Kinshasa, the capital of DR Congo, was only 45 minutes away by air and that large numbers of Congolese citizens came over daily to trade or work. Transport infrastructure linking Angola to its neighbours has either been refurbished or is in the process of being so. Railway links from the Port of Lobito to the mineral-rich areas of DR Congo and Zambia have already been established and should be commissioned in the near future. Lobito port itself is undergoing a major expansion with a specially designated mineral reception port now in place. This new outlet will be a major boon to eastern DR Congo and Zambia as it is expected to substantially reduce the transport costs for bulk minerals as well as imports going the other way. “But this is only part of the picture for Angola. There are huge investment opportunities in virtually every sector you can think of – agro-processing, manufacturing, energy, education, health, transport, tourism, entertainment, real estate development, retail… you name it! “Angola is making up for the lost decades and we have a huge list of things to do. While the state is central to some sectors such as energy, education and health and is pouring billions of dollars into these sectors, private investment is becoming an increasingly important partner in an increasing number of activities,” she said. One of these areas, Ms Maria Luísa Abrantes said, was infrastructure. “It is clear that without a functioning and fit-for-purpose infrastructure, you do not have the bases for economic growth and you cannot attract private investment. That is the reason why, since the war ended in 2002, the government had been pouring vast resources into roads, railways, bridges, ports,
airports – first rehabilitating them and then constructing new ones.”
Above: The airport at Catumbela.
Raft of infrastructure projects She rattled off a list of new infrastructure projects. For example, the new Angola International Airport will rival Johannesburg when it is completed in the near future; a new dry port in Luanda is in the final stages of completion, construction of new ports at Caxito in the province of Bengo and Porto Aboim in Kwanza Sul province is expected to begin soon; the magnificent new Parliament in Luanda will be inaugurated soon, while legislators moved into the new Benguela parliament last year.
‘It is clear that without a functioning and fit-forpurpose infrastructure, you do not have the bases for economic growth and you cannot attract private investment’
I wanted to know how private investment could play a part in the social housing programme. “Because of budgetary restraints and the need to avoid a drop in the quality of services because of them, we are turning increasingly to private enterprise,” she said. “This is where it is felt that a private organisation can be more efficient, or has a greater capacity to provide the necessary resources for essential investments.” She explained that private companies have been gradually replacing public entities in non-essential activities. In the area of social housing, private contractors – both foreign and local like Kora Angola and Imogestin – are contracted by the state to carry out projects to certain well-defined standards. “One of the essential elements defining the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) concept is the sharing of risk,” she said. “That definition implies that the sharing of risks between public and private entities must be correlated to the capacity of each party to manage those risks and that they be identified with absolute clarity in the contract,” she explained, adding that the transferring of risk to the private sector must be real and significant. She said PPP initiatives could come either from the government or private entities and her office was always open to discuss issues and work through the often-complicated rules and regulations governing many such initiatives. Foreign investment into Angola has increased very significantly from around $1.7bn in 2011 to $7.4bn in 2014. The bulk of the foreign investment has come from the US, France, Belgium, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Norway and China. “China is now number one,” she added, although Portugal was a leading investor in the non-oil and minerals sectors. At this point, her secretary came in and reminded her that our allocated time was up and that her next appointment was due. As we walked out, we saw a small delegation led by the ambassador of a major world power go into her office. Her secretary shrugged: just another packed day in the life of Maria Luísa Abrantes. n
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First night victory.
Now, nighttime can also mean match time. Innovative and renewable energy solutions will help bring reliable electricity to Africa.
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How do you create a real-estate industry out of virtually nothing? For decades, hardly anyone invested in real estate in Angola but the current heavy demand for both commercial and residential properties led to a mushrooming of informal agencies. Now the situation is stabilising and leading the way is Angolan company Imogestin. We talk to the CFO.
Wild at the edges CFO, Imogestin–SA, Branca do Espírito Santo
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he real estate market in Angola, says Branca do Espírito Santo, CFO of the country’s largest and best established agency, is “really speaking, immature. It is in the start-up phase.” Nevertheless, it is growing apace, as what seems an endless conveyor belt of properties become available. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of subsidised apartments that have, or are in the process of coming into the market, the demand for office space, especially in the capital, Luanda, “is overwhelming”, says Espírito Santo. We met her in her high-rise offices in the heart of the capital. Wherever you looked from the windows of her offices, you saw both newly finished (and often intriguingly designed) office towers and equally large structures in various forms of completion. There had been no construction of commercial property from the beginning of the war in 1975 to the establishment of peace in 2002. Since then, as the country’s economy grew in double-digit figures, the
demand for office space had easily outstripped whatever supply was still available. “Almost all the office space that is being constructed” she said has already been spoken for. “Companies are desperate for office space.” Many, including some major international firms, have converted residences into offices. Many traditional homes in the upmarket Miramar and Alvalade areas were being used to conduct business from – “these even include some embassies”. Our visit had taken place just a few days after it had been announced that Imogestin would take over the sales management of the new cities from Sonip and Delta Real Estate. This followed persistent complaints that the process had been far too slow and cumbersome in the past – with hopeful applicants often having to spend nights in the open so as not to lose their place in the queue. Since the decision had been made only a few days ago, Espírito Santo did not want to go into details on how her company would handle the process. “But you can be sure, we’ll manage it as well as possible –
we have the experience,” she said. A few weeks later, the company’s CEO, Rui Cruz, announced that the cases of people who had already paid for their properties but who had not yet received the keys to their apartments, would be dealt with first from mid-January. Imogestin was also working on practical modalities to rapidly process the hundreds of thousands of applications for new homes that had flooded in. Imogestin is also one of the biggest developers in the country. Putting together special purpose vehicles for property development in Angola is a complex matter, Espírito Santo said. It involves financing from local institutions such as BAI Bank, (which is also a shareholder), Bank Millennium, Malange Bank and so on. Portuguese companies are also partners in several Imogestin projects. She took us to view her company’s two projects, both over 20 storeys high and in advanced stages of completion. The Kianda Towers, which will be composed largely of offices and shops, is named after a powerful mermaid, central in Angola’s mythical tradition.
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Near this construction is Máxima, a large, ultra-modern complex that will include residential areas, a galleria that will include high-end shopping and entertainment and plenty of retail outlets. The contractors include Angolan companies such as Griner. Imogestin has also been developing several public housing schemes on behalf of the government and is involved in building hotels in Lobito. End of informal dealings Espírito Santo is also the chairman of APIMA, an association for real estate professionals and investors in Angola. The total freeze on all urban development during the lost war decades meant that when business picked up after 2002, there were only a few professional realtors and developers around. A good amount of dealing was done informally. While all land belongs to the state, some properties, such as those belonging to the Catholic Church are private. There are also people who own land and property from colonial times. Then there is a vast network of informal ‘ownership’ by dint of occupation, and parcels of land that fall under traditional ownership. All these factors coming together created a haphazard realtor market and it was obvious that some form of organisation was essential. Thus, APIMA was established in 2008 with 30 members. “While it is not necessary to become a member, there are advantages in doing so,” says Espírito Santo. But it is still not clear how many estate agencies are operating in Angola. “2010–11 was the last year of informal dealings – including brokers and contractors,” she explains. “Laws on the conduct of the industry have only recently been passed. Now real-estate agents are obliged to register companies with authenticated capital.” Despite this, the pressure of demand, led to the very rapid development of quality housing in some areas such as Talatona. “The demand for high-value housing is now plateauing,” she said. “Most of the really expensive houses, with marble floors and walls, and even gold taps,
While gated communities have now become a feature in Africa as well as the rest of the world, the pace of development in Angola is quite staggering
Above: Branca do Espírito Santo, CFO of Imogestin-SA.
have already been purchased.” Nevertheless, rents in newly built gated communities, as we discovered, can easily range from $12,000 to $18,000 per month. International companies also tend to house their expatriate staff in large, self-contained gated communities with their own shopping and leisure facilities. While gated communities have now become a feature not only in Africa and the rest of the developing world but also in global cities such as London and New York, the pace of development in Angola is quite staggering. Whether the private sector, which is looking largely for a 15% return on capital as basic opportunity cost, will continue to invest in the higher end of the property market in light of the reduced national income for oil, remains to be seen. Mortgage rates, at least at the time of the interview, were 12-15%, down from around 25% in 2010–11. Most financing is from banks as there are no dedicated mortgage companies yet. “This has hit the middle class hard,” says Espírito Santo. “The problem has been the lack of title deeds. There is a lot of work going on, at state and private level, to try and resolve this issue as the demand for suitable housing, especially in Luanda, is fairly stable.” Espírito Santo studied microeconomics at the Martin Luther University in Germany before returning to Angola to work in the Ministry of Planning. During the war years, she worked for a German NGO, managing funds to develop agriculture. She went into the real estate business some 16 years ago and worked her way through the entire value chain – property development, brokerage, evaluation – before BAI bank, an insurance company, several individuals and herself formed Imogestin. To what degree has the demand for property, both residential as well as commercial been met so far? “I would say the demand in 2010 was for around 1m square metres. It is around 600,000 sqm now.” The Angolan real-estate industry may be relatively new and still wild at the edges but it has got to be the most promising in Africa. n
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S P OT L I G H T:
A R C H I T ECT U R E
Every structure that goes up in a city changes the urban environment and often people’s perceptions of themselves, for the better or worse. City design should therefore reflect traditional values.
Let us build with joy President, Union of Architects of Angola, Victor Leonel A.C. Miguel
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he Association of Angolan Architects was formed in 1996 to try and get some shape to the industry, which was replete with genuine and bogus architects vying for business in a very hostile environment, says Victor Miguel, president of the Union of Architects of Angola. “It was not until after the establishment of peace in 2002 that there was a real demand for architects as people slowly began to invest in building – both as residences and for commercial use,” he recalls. “But the industry was unwieldy and it was necessary to create an institution that could be trusted by the public, as well as the state, as it went about constructing new infrastructure. The institution that grew out of the earlier Associate of Architects became the Union of Architects of Angola, which is affiliated to an international institute of architects. It has
800 members, of whom 99% are Angolans. Others include architects from Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and some Cubans and Portuguese. The massive boom in construction did not immediately translate into full order books for the local architects, says Miguel. “Contracts for the big projects went to the large international firms and it was difficult to even get sub-contacting work,” he says. The situation has improved considerably now and his own company was involved in designing a major project – a government-financed school for social journalists. But as more people construct their own premises or expand existing properties, they turn increasingly to local architects. Angolan architects are now involved in virtually all major projects, such as Kilamba, where they can bring invaluable local knowledge. “We understand the people, their tastes, their financial conditions and how to build most effectively in our own environment. After all, we have grown up in it,” he emphasises. Miguel studied architecture for five years at the Agostinho Neto University. What concerns him the most is the danger of the country losing its own traditional architectural values and becoming a bad copy of someone else’s idea of what is desirable. “Of course it is not easy,” he concedes. “At the end, all housing today is similar: a living room, perhaps a dining room, bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, some storage space and if possible a little garden. Then you
have variations on the theme. So you can argue that modern housing has to be uniform. But, I still feel that there is room to bring in one’s own cultural influence so that the structures are unmistakably Angolan.” That said, he is quick to point out: “A hungry child seeks only food – whatever its taste.” He says the absolute priority today is to house people who have been without decent housing for decades “and perhaps had given up hope of ever being able to live in a modern apartment.” He is confident that in time, as the cities develop, they will acquire their own special characteristics – just as some of the world’s great cities have done over the centuries. “Whenever you put up a building, you are changing the view – every architect is a city changer. It can be for the better or the worse, it can reflect thought and imagination or it can be haphazard, but it changes the urban environment and in that, it changes the life around that environment and how people perceive themselves. One has to be wise in the choice one makes.” Architect Miguel says that members of his profession in Angola are very excited by the boom in construction but would like to be more engaged in this great programme. “This is the time for architects to shine – and we have some great ideas. The cities we build today are the heritage for generations to come. Let us build with joy.” n
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While the great Angolan public housing programmes continues apace, the capital itself is undergoing a major ‘makeover’ that, when completed, will turn this old city into perhaps Africa’s most modern and attractive place to live.
A place of dignity and joy
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part from the hundreds of thousands of units of new housing that have been springing up all over the country, Angola is also deep into the renewal and regeneration of its major cities. Nothing exemplifies this more than the vast building works taking place in the capital Luanda. No matter where you go in the city, you cannot really escape the frenetic construction activity. Structures are being pulled down and new ones erected in their place at blinding speed. There is scaffolding everywhere and large banners and signage proclaim loudly that the city is now firmly in the hands of contractors and developers. Luanda is being given, to use a contemporary term, a gigantic ‘makeover’ in full view of anyone who cares to look. The old, venerable city, originally meant to accommodate a maximum of around 300-400,000 people, is disappearing “right in front of our eyes”, as our architect guide put it, and “a sparkling new city is rising, also right in front of our eyes!”. But not all of Luanda’s old charms are being destroyed. “There are some fabulous Portuguese architectural gems from the 18th century here,” says architect Bento Soito. “We are restoring, restructuring and modernising historic parts of the city. It is only if upgrading is impossible that we consider demolishing such structures.” Bento Soito is the managing director of the Technical Office for the Reconstruction of Cazenga, Sambizanga and Rangel (Gabinete Técnico de Reconstrução de Cazenga, Sambizanga e Rangel). These three districts lie at the heart of the city and, until very recently, contained more human beings per square metre than virtually anywhere else in the world. Luanda’s population is estimated at around seven to eight million. This is where you would have found the famous Mercado Roque Santeiro, the biggest informal market
Luanda is being given, to use a contemporary term, a gigantic ‘makeover’ in full view of anyone who cares to look
Above: Drainage at the Sambizanga project. Opposite: Luanda Bay.
on the continent. According to our guide, you could buy anything and everything in the bewildering, twisting labyrinth of shacks and stalls. This area acted like a magnet to the millions of migrants from all over the country’s rural areas during the turmoil and insecurity caused by the war. This gave rise to a mighty slum, a worthy rival to Mumbai’s Dharavi – unchallenged as the world’s biggest slum. In 2010, with eight years of peace behind him and handsome oil revenues providing the muscle, President Dos Santos, who was born in Sambizanga, decided it was time to tackle the fetid slum that had sat like an open sore in the middle of the city. He created the Technical Office for Reconstruction of Cazenga,
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‘Our objective is the construction of a city model that is functional, economically sustainable, inclusive and able to give a sense of dignity, joy and a high quality of life’
Sambizanga and Rangel, directly accountable to the President. Bento Soito was appointed to manage the office. The task that he and his office have is to uproot the slum, clear out and clean out the area and build Africa’s most modern city in its place. And they have to do this without resorting to forcible eviction or any other unpleasant method. “Relocation in situ” is how he puts it. The people displaced by the operation have to be rehoused in far better accommodation and their livelihoods have to be unaffected. As a first step, the Mercado Roque Santeiro was dismantled and transferred to the borough of Cacuaco. We had seen and visited the market while we were touring Cacuaco – a smaller version of Kilamba. The new Municipal
Market of Panguila is smaller but housed in a clean, well-equipped and hygienic space. It is equipped with a unique system of collecting, processing and use of solid waste for improved recycling of waste produced in the enclosure. Banks, restaurants and cinemas are starting to open there. Dignity, joy and a high quality of life Nevertheless, we found Sambizanga to be a thriving, bustling area, where trade in all sorts of items was in full swing. But the congested market was gone and the area where it had been had been levelled. We were informed that basic infrastructure – water supply, sewerage, electricity, roads, telecommunications systems and drainage ditches – was already in place.
From offices in Sambizanga, Bento Soito and his team overlook their domain: an area of around 54,000 sqm which, when completed, hopefully by 2025, is expected to house some 2.5m people. “Our objective is the construction of a city model that is functional, economically sustainable, inclusive and able to give its inhabitants and visitors a sense of dignity, joy and a high quality of life.” These, he said were his exact instructions from President José Eduardo dos Santos. But how do you move such a mass of humanity and resettle it without causing untold social turmoil? “We call our methodology the ‘snowball effect’,” he explains. When you roll a snowball downhill, it
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becomes bigger as it gathers more snow to itself. The idea is to start the process and let it gather momentum as it moves forward. The plan is to build homes in ‘available, non-occupied areas’ in the vicinity and gradually move the population to those developments. “This strategy will enable the building of new urbanisations in a phased way, in the areas released after the transfer of the population from the degraded areas. “We hope that the strategy defined for urban reconversion will form a cycle of sustainable actions – and that this will be an example for intervention in other localities.” We later visited a site in nearby Cazenga, where we saw nearlyfinished row upon row of fourstorey buildings, each with 16 flats per floor. There were Chinese workers applying the final coats of paint, attaching the doors and windows and basically putting the finishing touches before the accommodation can be offered to the public. The infrastructure, including water-treatment plants, streetlighting, power stations and internal road systems was completely in place and a large secondary school was in its final phases of completion. Some of the construction workers told us that the area had been rough ground only four or months earlier – a claim that I found very difficult to believe but had no real reason to doubt. Soito said that the basic infrastructure for half the 150 acres set aside in Cazenga for the first phase of the urban renewal project; and 90% of the 76 acres set aside for similar purposes in Sambizanga had been completed. The 2,000 apartments in Cazenga expected to be completed by the end of 2014 would go to people whose dwellings had been demolished to make way for the new developments. In fact, occupancy of the first 128 homes built in Cazenga had begun in 2013. The relocation exercise is expected to involve some three million inhabitants of the ‘intervention’ area but clearly not 70 african business | african cities | march 2015
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The area had poor natural drainage. But the plan is to turn the disadvantage into an advantage by controlling and directing the water into attractive features such as ponds, waterways, urban gardens and green areas
Left: View from Miramar of the Luanda skyline with its construction under way. Above: Looking towards the Marginal, which runs along the bay.
all can be settled in the Luanda area. “The process of expansion, relocation of the population and development of the territory should not be restricted to just the area itself,” Soito says. “Areas adjacent to Cacuaco, Viana and Kilamba should also absorb some of this population.” The new master plan Angola’s urban planners have ambitious plans to convert this once-degraded slum area into what they hope will be a model for an emerging African city for the 21st century. The city has gone through a series of master plans, including one which was part funded by the World Bank in the 1990s, but the huge influx of migrants put paid to any attempt to make the plans really work. A new master plan was drawn up in 2012 after wide-ranging discussions with all sections of civil society and public service providers such as the electricity distribution company, EDEL, the water company, EPAL, as well as the private telecommunications giant, Unitel. Singapore’s famous urban planning company, Surbana, was also consulted. Soito say he wants to see verdant green areas in the new development so that residents and visitors can enjoy the feeling
of being in a garden city but also be near all amenities and modern facilities. He is under no illusion that the execution of such a complex undertaking will be in any way easy. Given the number of organisations and agencies involved, he says, it will be essential that “everybody walk in the same direction” and that the execution of the plan should be organised in such a manner that it minimises conflicts and disruptions. This, he says, will be a test of the “multidisciplinary organisational capacity of the Angolan society”, and a sign that the transformation process is on the right track. The government will take charge of basic infrastructure and the administration and control of aspects such as social housing, but the private sector will be invited to fully participate in the real-estate development and the construction of high-value property. The design of the new development is based on the structure of Welwitschia mirabilis, a plant that only grows in the Namibe desert and which is one of the symbols of the country. He told us that one of the drawbacks of the area was that it had very poor natural drainage, as a result of which it had developed several unsightly and unhealthy swampy areas. But the plan is to turn the disadvantage into an advantage by controlling and directing the water into attractive features such as a series of ponds, waterways and urban gardens, and plenty of green areas. These, he says, will form the beautiful backdrop for a host of new commercial, entertainment and sports facilities. There will be high-quality hotels, restaurants and parades. Well-planned roads will include pedestrian and cycle paths and the aim will be to reduce motorised traffic. He and his team want, as he puts it, the “oxygenation of space and the humanisation of the territory.” What more can one ask from an urban planner? n
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Designing for the future Luanda’s grand master plan, designed to turn the capital of Angola into a city fit for 21st century living, is in the works and should be completed by mid this year.
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e met architect Hélder José (right), the Director of IPGUL, the Instituto de Planeamento e Gestão Urbana de Luanda (Institute of Urban Planning and Management of Luanda), fairly late one evening in his still-busy office in the heart of Luanda. He told us that the definitive master plan for Luanda – “We are looking at both the city as well as the province” – is still very much work in progress and is expected to be presented to President Dos Santos mid-June this year. The last master-plan study for Luanda was commissioned by the World Bank in the 1990s but the institution later withdrew and the Angolan government picked up the tab. The study was completed circa 1996 but, between the start of the study and 2000, Luanda had changed beyond all recognition as the city was bursting at the seams. “We implemented some of the plan, for example the roads, but it was quite clear that the plan had little or no relevance beyond 2000,” said José. The office of the Institute of Urban Planning and Management of Luanda is involved in the day-to-day drawing up of a comprehensive master plan and making the thousand-and-one detailed adjustments that crop up constantly. It also leads conceptualisation at the design stage and factors in various forms of transport, the changing landscape, waterways and so on. “Basically, we are drawing up a master plan for a modern, 21st century city. The idea is to make a rational plan in which all the elements of a modern city, residential and commercial buildings, road networks and traffic control, bridges, rail connections, ports and airports, parks and recreational areas, sports arena and everything else are juxtaposed logically,” he explained.
‘We have to make sure that we do not lose the special character of the city of Luanda. There are beautiful 18th century buildings’ “While we would like to disperse some of the population away from the city centre, we have to design Luanda to be able to absorb population growth and ensure that all the facilities needed, including water supply, drainage, schools, hospitals, museums, art galleries, shopping outlets and so forth, can be factored in for growth at the planning stage.” José said that while a huge number of new structures were coming up, “We have to make sure that we do not lose the special character of the city of Luanda. This is one of the oldestestablished cities in this part of the world and we do not want to lose that heritage. There are some beautiful buildings and features from the 18th century that are in need of preserving and upgrading.” He pointed out that currently 80% of the city worked on an informal
basis. “We are working on integrating this vibrant but unregulated sector into the formal economy.” A very important part of the master plan involves the decongestion of the city. At present, traffic moves at a snail’s pace, costing the city billions of dollars in lost efficiency and drastically reducing work time as well as productivity. Part of the decongestion plan is to expand the famous Estrada de Viana, which bisects the province, and add flyovers and bypasses to allow traffic to move more freely. Transport links to the new international airport, due to be commissioned early this year, will also be channelled in such a manner that traffic is not congested. “There are also several other options and possibilities in the transport mix for the city and the province,” says José . “The transport system will be functional and modern. At the moment we have isolated ‘islands’ and the plan is to integrate these using not only roads but an elevated metro, hovercrafts and catamarans to connect up various parts using the sea and waterways.” The single railway line now serving the city is being renovated and upgraded and a second line is part of the plan. José told us that the renovation and rehabilitation of Luanda raised considerable debate about whether it should remain both the commercial as well as political capital or whether the political capital should be moved elsewhere – as many African and other developing regions have done. But while this and other discussions over the future of Luanda continue and as José and his team apply the final touches to the city’s latest master plan, Luanda continues to grow and yet another set of 20-storeyplus commercial towers is completed and Africa’s newest and most modern central business district takes shape. n
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‘A future full of light’ What has been the effect of Angola’s great urbanisation programme on its often far-flung provinces? To find out, Anver Versi and his team visited Uíge, in the north of the country and one of the provinces worst hit during the civil war.
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ur first venture outside Luanda was to the city of Uíge, capital of the province with the same name. It is around 300km northeast of Luanda and butts up against the southern border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We travelled by road and once out of the constant log jam of vehicles in Luanda, we were able to motor along at a good click on an excellent road. Our driver told us that the road had only been refurbished a short while ago and that at one time it was one of the most dangerous roads in the country. UNITA guerrillas lurked in the dense jungle on either side of the windy road and often launched attacks on anyone trying to use the road. Heavy annual rainfall ensured that the province was perpetually verdant and the land fertile. Surprisingly, there was very little traffic on the road, only the occasional
4x4 and a heavily loaded truck now and then. The only people trying to ‘ambush us’ were kids and local villagers with vegetables or bushmeat to sell. Uíge, once the centre of the powerful Kongo Kingdom, had fallen on hard times in the early part of the 20th century and was largely shunned by the Portuguese colonisers as being of little interest. Then they discovered that its weather and soil were perfect for growing coffee. Portuguese settlers established large plantations using forced labour and increased the yield from the local Bakongo smallholders. From the 1950s, Uíge provided most of the coffee that made Angola the second-largest exporter of the bean in Africa. But Uíge had also found itself in the eye of the storm, first in the battle for independence against the Portuguese and later during the civil war. The people had been among the leaders of the rebellion against Portuguese excesses and
The town of Uíge came as a pleasant surprise. The roads were wide and well maintained and there seemed to be sense of civic pride Right: Schoolgirls on their way to school stop for a moment in Central Park, the main town square of Uíge, off the Rua Dr Agostinho Neto.
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formed the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), one of the three major movements that fought for Angolan independence. During the civil war, Uíge caught more than its fair share of flak as UNITA guerrillas used the thick forest cover around the province to hide and launch attacks. UNITA occupied Uíge on several occasions and it was not until the peace agreement in 2002 that the province could begin to resurrect the sort of normal life it had dreamt of but never really experienced in modern times. After all the trauma it had gone through, the town of Uíge itself came as a pleasant surprise. The roads were wide and well maintained and there seemed to be sense of civic pride about the way people went about their business. They were keen to point out features of interest and the changes that were taking place in the city. The following day we visited the market, which was bursting with local produce including their famed chillies and bananas. Near the market, young men had polished their motorcycle taxis until they gleamed like mirrors. They took great delight in showing off their machines – “the best motorcycle taxi service in the world!”, one of them declared and who could argue with him? There was considerable excitement about the new housing projects that were in the final stages of construction some distance from Uíge City and its close neighbour Negage.
Right: In Quilomoço City, just outside Uíge, the second phase of construction is under way. Opposite and below: New apartment buildings from the first phase.
No time to lick wounds We met the Vice-Governor, Afonso Luviluku, who greeted us with old-world charm. What was the effect of the war on Uíge, we asked. “Throughout the civil war that lasted nearly three decades, the province suffered greatly. State services and trade were almost paralysed. The loss of animals and the destruction of infrastructure caused a further significant increase in poverty levels. It was tough. People had nothing. No one dared to go to the streets after 6 pm and our towns were empty. Yes, we were severely affected by the civil war but
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‘Since the opening up of new roads, industrial activity is taking shape. Coffee plantations that were stagnant for 40 years are starting production and we are reviewing the exploration of our mineral resources’ are determined to move on. No time to lick our wounds!” We had encountered a sense of optimism for the future in Luanda and it was delightful to see that there was a similar feeling in the provinces. “Since the opening up of new roads, industrial activity in the province is taking shape. Coffee plantations that were stagnant for 40 years are finally starting production (we used to have the biggest coffee production of the country and were the second in Africa) and we are now in the process of reviewing the exploration of our mineral resources,” he declared with evident pride. Luviluku recalled that the province, which has a similar mineral geological structure to Katanga Province in DR Congo, also produced a high grade of copper until the civil war put paid to that line. “Presently, we are negotiating the exploration rights of the Mavoio mines, at the border with the Congo Republic, with an Angolan consortium – and extraction will restart soon.” Silver, cobalt and diamonds are also reported to have been found in the alluvial deposits of the province. “At the moment,” he said, “the central government is running a detailed survey of Angola’s natural resources. Deposits of other minerals, such as gold, lead, manganese, vanadium and zinc were also found here. We normally have 10 months of rain in a year and are also rich in hydro resources, in need of strong investment.” Despite the devastation caused by the war, Uíge is still one of the richest provinces in Angola in terms of agriculture. “We mainly produce beans, cassava, peanuts, cotton and hard woods. Our chillies are famous worldwide for their strong aromatic properties and our bananas are the sweetest in Angola. I think we can claim in all fairness that Uíge
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is, in terms of natural resources, one of the richest provinces of our nation!” Now the province is developing at a record pace, the Vice-Governor told us. “Hardly any day passes without news of yet another project being constructed here and there; a school, a health clinic, a hospital, a sports pavilion. We are focusing on creating the best conditions for young people and adults to work, graduate and find space for their personal development.” According to the 2014 national consensus, the population of the province is 1.45m, 52% of whom are female. Uíge and its neighbour, Negage, are the most populous towns. The projects the Vice-Governor was referring to include two major housing projects – one outside Uíge and the other near Negage. Quilomoço City We visited the new ‘centrality’ of Quilomoço, 30 km from Uíge City, to see how far the housing project had progressed. Our guide was Pedro Morais, the site/project manager. Morais, a Portuguese engineer, works for Kora Angola, the Angolan arm of Kora, a large Israeli construction company. Kora Angola’s involvement is part of the PPP arrangement through which the country has undertaken its massive housing programme. The company is responsible for completing 40,000 apartments and houses in the provinces of Luanda, Uíge, Kwanza-Sul, Huambo, Bié and Mochico. Morais told us that, following a government pledge, Kora Angola was committed to managing and supervising the construction of 4,500 dwellings in the province and completing the task by 2017. Morais was confident that the company would complete the task well before the due date. He showed us around the Quilomoço project. It consists of 1,010 residential flats, four crèches, six pre-schools, six primary schools, two secondary schools, one polytechnic training school, one health centre and one sports centre. Although, unlike Kilamba, this
site was uninhabited, it was impressive. It did not have the appearance of a mass-produced social housing project that one sees in so many places and great care had clearly been taken to ensure that the quality of day-to-day life for the people living there would be enhanced. There were plenty of common green areas for people to meet and mingle and children to play in and the positioning of the major structures was neither oppressive or alienating – a common criticism of social housing in many parts of the world. Construction on this 38-acre site started in July 2012 and, Morais told us, was in its final stage. “The buildings are complete, the roads paved, gardens, and green areas planted or being planted and 70% of the infrastructure required for the site is in place,” he said. A similar project was under way in Uíge’s neighbouring city of Negage.
They told us they felt a new and more vibrant life being born every day since the end of the war. ‘Before then, the future was dark – now it is full of light’
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Left: Motorcycle taxis outside the market. Right: Afonso Luviluku, the Governor of Uíge Province. Below: A view across southern Uíge.
Kora Angola supervises the execution of all the designs, supplies the materials needed for the buildings and subcontracts other companies for the construction. Infrastructure is the responsibility of another company, Angolac. Morais said that 70% of the workforce of this project (800 people at the final stage) was Angolan – and local, in keeping with government guidelines to create jobs during the construction of the new cities. “Angolan workers are very interested in learning all about construction techniques such as plumbing, tiling, casting and other skills,” he said, adding that Angolans such as his site co-manager, a gentleman called Hercules, were proving themselves excellent supervisors as well. “These workers and managers are an integral part of the future shape of the country,” he added. Indeed, technology and skills transfer is
part of the whole scheme of things behind the urbanisation project. The aim is not just to create new, modern towns, but to transform the country. Walking the path of growth Commenting on our visit to the construction site, Afonso Luviluku, the Vice-Governor, said that new developments such as Quilomoço City “have meant a new beginning not only for the families who will live there but also of an attitude: cities are not problems but solutions. Until 2017, and as part of a national programme, 200 new homes will be also built in every municipality of the province”. He added that even if one of the current constraints was still the lack of infrastructure destroyed by the war, “I have no doubt that in a short time, many of today’s problems will be also part of the history of a
people who are walking together the paths of actual growth.” The recent inauguration of the provincial airport already aligned the aim of facilitating links with the rest of the country and especially to the capital, he added. “Although water doesn’t yet gush from the taps of all municipalities, the ‘Water for All’ programme is well under way, and where there is scarcity, the government distributes, by alternative means, this resource essential for life.” He told us that the University Kimpa Vita, with about 11,000 students, named after a martyr of the kingdom of Kongo, who was burnt alive in the 18th century by the Portuguese, has been another excellent engine for the development of the province since its opening in 2009. “The addition of medical and engineering courses in the coming years will be other catalyst of this broad development. “The next step is bringing banking services to the remaining municipalities as the capital of the province here has already secured the presence of almost all Angolan commercial banking,” he commented. The Vice-Governor and some of his officials told us that they felt a new and more vibrant life being born every day since the end of the war. “Before then, the future was dark – now it is full of light.” The new developments promised not only better housing but also improved health and education services, better employment opportunities and the flowering of many cultural events and activities. “Associations and sports clubs, for example, are growing around us. The rise, in 2014, of Uíge Sport Club to Girabola, our main football champion, represents the victory of belief and confident of all Uígenses,” the Vice-Governor added with feeling. “I see more and more smiles on people’s faces and, for that, I feel humbly proud for being an Uígense. We finally have the chance to see a new generation growing in peaceful times – and with our ancestral resilience and quiet determination, things can only get better.” n
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A straight line to prosperity Benguela, in the west of Angola, forms a dynamic littoral with Lobito and Catumbela. The revival of its 100-year-old railway line and the modernisation of the port of Lobito should generate rapid new growth to this historic province. It is also the seat of a vast new set of centralities for its rapidly increasing, young and upwardly mobile population. Anver Versi and his team paid a visit.
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enguela, the capital of the province with the same name, overlooks the Atlantic Ocean on Angola’s western seaboard. It was founded in 1617 by a Portuguese governor, Manuel Cerveira Pereira, who called it São Filipe de Benguela. He believed, correctly as it turned, out that the hinterland behind Benguela would be a source of great wealth. Although the Portuguese failed to find the gold and silver they had hoped for, the port of Benguela soon became busy shipping out streams of slaves to their dominions in Latin America. Other produce, over the centuries, included various grains, rubber, sisal, vegetable oils, ivory, rhino horns and hides, and cattle. The volume of trade along the corridors to the interior gave rise to several towns in the near vicinity and provided Benguela with its reputation as ‘The Mother of all Cities’.
However, the lack of a natural deep harbour meant that ships had to anchor well outside, and cargo and people had to be carried in boats. When a naturally sheltered and deep harbour was discovered further north, shipping traffic began to abandon Benguela in favour of Lobito. Lobito is the archetypical seacity, although the ancient, romantic buildings from previous generations are difficult to find. Today, it has a workaday look that does not exactly inspire tales of high adventure on dangerous seas as it once did, but the maritime atmosphere does envelope the city and the attitudes. Lobito port has been undergoing a great deal of expansion and modernisation. It now has dedicated wharfs for containers and a specially built facility that is designed to transport minerals not only from Angola but also from neighbouring countries.
The Benguela railway has had a colourful history of more than 100 years. It now enters a new phase with the line completely relaid by Chinese railway contactors. The 1,344km line will ply the rich and vast Lobito corridor to Luau, on the eastern border with DR Congo. It is expected that this opening up of the interior will greatly stimulate agriculture along the corridor and encourage diversification. Extensions will take the line to Katanga in DR Congo and a 300km line will extend it to the rich copper belt of Zambia. An 18km line connects the eastern end of the railway at Benguela to Lobito port. The total cost of the project has been put at around $1,5bn. Refurbishing of the railway, which was virtually totally destroyed during the war, began in 2008, although the line to the DR Congo border has now been completely relaid by Chinese railway contractors.
Right: Lobito port.
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Given the varied terrain over which the line has to traverse, there are only four trips per week and the maximum speed was 50 kph. The engineers we met told us that the line has to ‘settle’ before the frequency of trips and speeds can be increased. When all parts of this veryadvanced integrated rail and port transport system mesh together, it will be easily the most modern and efficient such system in subSaharan Africa. The savings, in terms of freight costs, especially for bulk cargo, will be tremendous and this, it is expected, will help generate a virtuous cycle of economic growth all along the line, including for exporters from neighbouring countries. Due to communication misunderstandings, the governor of the province who we were scheduled to meet was away on other duties, but we were still very warmly welcomed by, among other community leaders, the chief of police, who told us that with all the developments taking place on the Benguela railway, and the expansion and modernisation of Lobito port, which was very near, the province was gearing up for a period of sustained growth. As an example of the province’s new-found economic dynamism, we landed at a brand-new airport at Catumbela, one of Banguela’s 10 municipalities. We were told of grand plans to combine the three adjacent cities of Lobito, Catumbela and Benguela, as well as an area called Elephant Bay, into one megaurban sprawl with high-end malls, entertainment and sporting centres, luxury hotels and world-class restaurants. Wild West landscape Despite the snarl-up in arrangements, an obliging site manager took us to see the three massive housing projects under construction. Thus far, we had either seen completed projects such as in Kilamba or Uíge; now it was our opportunity to see these new ‘centralities’ rising from the ground up. When we neared the vast construction site, we drove through a landscape that properly belonged
For the first time, we could see the whole project unfolding – from raw land that had been dug up and shaped to finished cities that would soon buzz with life to a Wild West movie. It looked as if giant hands had scooped out the earth and flung it about in all sorts of shapes and forms. You expected a band of outlaws to come galloping around the bend, brandishing sixshooters, at any moment. However, the dramatic landscape brought home the fact that all construction work begins with shaping the land – levelling it and forming it as required by the needs of building. Only then can the vital infrastructure of pipes, cables, and other equipment be laid under the foundations of the new cities. Virtually all the construction work was being carried out by CITIC, one of the world’s largest construction companies. When we reached the operations headquarters of the company we were treated to a panoramic view of newly built residential blocks seemingly growing straight out of the ground. For the first time during our trip, we were able to talk to some of the Chinese running the projects. They
Above: The first buildings on the Benguela/ Lobito site.
told us that everything they used had come straight from China and they were comfortable with that as they knew exactly what to expect. They said they got on very well with their Angolan co-workers although language was a barrier. Once they had arrived in Angola, they tended to stay on and move from one project when it was finished to another. “But this way, we learn how to operate in the conditions so it becomes easier and we can work faster.” From our vantage point of view, it was impossible to gauge what the finished centralities would look like so they showed us master plans for three projects: Luhongo Red (2,000 houses); Baia Farta Red (1,000 houses) and Lobito Red (3,000 houses). [check names] Each plan detailed the position of the buildings, the roads, lots of green areas, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, commercial areas, community buildings, municipal buildings, religious centres, open markets, electricity transformers and distribution substations, waste transfer stations, sewage treatment plants and water purification plants. For the first time during our visit to Angola, we were able to see the whole project unfolding – from raw land that had been dug up and shaped to finished cities that would soon buzz with life. It was quite a humbling experience, and you had to take off your hat both to Angola for having the courage to dream up and undertake such a vast programme and all the various actors, including the final tenants, who were making it all happen. n
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Cabinda ‘The Kuwait’ of Africa
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his is a nickname that the Angolan province of Cabinda shares with Equatorial Guinea. Both territories have high oil production for such relatively small territories and indeed Cabinda is the traditional heart of the Angolan oil industry. Oil is produced in the province by a Chevron subsidiary, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC), on shallow-water fields in Block Zero, which CABGOC has operated for an incredible six decades. Although production here has now declined to 350,000 b/d, a large proportion of Angola’s deepwater output also lies offshore Cabinda, including CABGOC’s Block 14, which yields about 250,000 b/d from the Benguela, Belize, Lobito, Tomboco (BBLT) and Tombua Landana projects. The political geography of this part of the Central African coast is the result of a combination of Portugal’s original claims over the area and the 19th century Scramble for Africa. This resulted in the creation of two Portuguese colonies: Angola to the south and the area that later came to be known as Cabinda, to the north, which were separated by 20km of territory held by the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cabinda was ruled separately from Angola during the colonial period but subsequently taken over by Luanda. Oil production aside, Cabinda exports timber and smaller amounts of coffee, rubber and palm oil, although there is great potential for much greater production of all of these. As in the rest of Angola, agricultural production fell after independence. Although per capita oil production is much higher in Cabinda than anywhere else in
Africa, the province is relatively poor even compared to other parts of Angola. However, it is now benefitting from the same sort of infrastructural investment that has marked economic growth in other Angolan coastal urban centres. The centrepiece of the government’s diversification plans is the new deepwater port of Caio, which is located just 9km from the city of Cabinda. It is being developed by an Angolan firm, Caio Porto Company, which is spending $600m in Phase 1 on a breakwater, 150m wide access canal and 215m wide basin, which are all scheduled for completion in mid-2016. Access roads to the port are already under development as they will be needed to move materials into the port for construction. Phase 2 will provide a 1,550m long quay and container handling facilities; and Phase 3 will see this extended to 1,995m. Although it is expected to be primarily a container port, no details on the scale of the container terminal have been released, nor its intended users. However, given Luanda’s policy
Above: Oil exploration offshore Angola.
elsewhere in the country, it seems likely that a major international port operator will be awarded a concession to operate the container terminal. Caio is likely to compete with ports in Congo-Brazzaville and river ports in Democratic Republic of Congo, rather than with other Angolan ports. The Province of Cabinda as a whole is currently heavily dependent on imports from neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville. In the long term, it is hoped that this relationship will be reversed, with the port becoming a transhipment centre port for the entire region, as it lies within 400km of four large cities: Luanda, Kinshasa, Brazzaville and Pointe Noire. Massive container ships are becoming the norm in the shipping sector but fewer ports have the required depth to handle them, so transhipment is becoming ever more important. The governor of Cabinda, Aldina da Lomba Catembo, said: “This is the biggest ever investment in Cabinda and will allow for local exports specifically of wood, coffee and agricultural products and bring us closer to other provinces in Angola as well as other countries in the region.” Another huge transport project has been mooted but development is unlikely to proceed because of the current level of oil prices: there is a scheme to build a bridge connecting Cabinda with Zaire Province in Angola by crossing Congolese territory. The government announced in 2008 that China Road and Bridge Corporation would build the project at a cost of $2.55bn but work did not begin. Even if oil prices were to recover, the commercial case has not yet been made. However, investment is also being made in tourist infrastructure, including a marina and golf course. There are also believed to be substantial phosphate reserves and possibly uranium. n
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V I E W P O I N T
When social good outweighs profit Impact investment is investment that meshes in commercial viability with desirable social outcomes. Eytan Stibbe of Vital Capital talks about his company’s work in Angola and the impact this has had on the housing programme.
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ytan Stibbe has an aerial video of his investment in Angola; a swooping sequence shot from a drone as it flies over manicured lawns and neat cinderblock houses. Vital Capital has invested $92m into the Kora project, to plan, build and sell 40,000 new houses and develop the supporting infrastructure in six provinces in Angola. The company has worked with the famous Brazilian architect, city planner and politician Jaime Lerner to develop the structure of the communities, which include schools, play areas, offices, retail and light manufacturing facilities alongside the housing units. “The biggest problem in Africa is housing and urbanisation,” says Stibbe, the company’s CEO. “Hundreds of millions are moving into cities, and it’s increasing the [existing] problems. People are paying attention to other things – diseases and food security – but the main thing is urbanisation.
If you build proper urban areas with sanitation, schools, all the rest is automatically resolved.” Stibbe heads a firm that takes an ‘impact investing’ approach to financing projects in Africa, meshing its commercial objectives with social goals. Vital Capital’s first fund, a $350m vehicle, is mainly backed by private investors, although a sub-fund runs money for the African Development Bank, International Finance Corporation and CDC Group. The fund has invested across the continent in agribusiness and processing, healthcare and infrastructure. Housing, which Stibbe believes offers a compelling mix of a dire social need with a sound commercial prospect, is a major area of focus. “The demand is incredible,” he says. UN-Habitat says in its 2014 State of African Cities report that smaller urban centres will absorb as much as 75% of future population increases, meaning that more remote regions with less developed infrastructure may face a considerable demographic burden. Vital Capital’s urbanisation project in Angola is designed to alleviate some of this pressure. The initiative is co-funded by the government, which has put up equity to back the projects. Bringing in additional contractors and long-term partners brings the total capital investment going into the initiative to more than $2.5bn, Stibbe says. The government is also committed to build infrastructure and utilities in the regions where the fund would be investing. “We asked the government ‘where is the biggest problem?’. They told us several regions. We started looking at financing, mortgages... we put things
in place with the government. We told them ‘we’ll invest in this remote site, but you must make sure there’s schools, roads, energy’.” Only when the state’s investment was confirmed did the fund begin to invest. Audited performance “The people love us,” Stibbe says. “When you pay attention to the impact, and don’t just act like a real estate company trying to get the best location that’s worth the highest price for sale, they love you, they want you to do more. We started with tens of thousands, but now they want us to do everything. Competition is tough in the housing sector.” Among Stibbe’s competitors are Chinese-based contractors, who are able to promise fast turnarounds and low prices. In Angola in particular, however, Chinese companies have been criticised for poor standards and for importing labour, denying the local population access to jobs in construction. Vital Capital’s impact metrics, which are rated according to the Global Impact Investing Ratings System, or GIIRS, mean that its portfolio companies and supply chain are audited on their labour standards safety and other social indicators. “When we take a subcontractor – if it’s an African or Chinese subcontractor – for a project, we have to ensure that they are also working to the standards that we set,” Stibbe says. “We have several Chinese subcontractors. We impose on them the way we work.” This means using local labour and international building standards, adding cost, but making the projects more sustainable in the long run. Stibbe says that the firm has turned
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down opportunities to bid for contracts that do not match its desire to invest in community infrastructure alongside housing units. Competing on price does not make sense socially, he says, nor is it commercially necessary. The demand is so high that it will take decades to meet. He is also adamant that impact investing is the best approach for the sector – and others in frontier markets, such as sub-Saharan Africa. Stibbe has worked in Africa for more than 30 years, and believes that commercial goals and social outcomes are mutually supportive. “The more you invest in impact, the higher the profits will be. There’s no trade-off. It’s completely the opposite. In developing countries you work with the population, you don’t work with numbers and screens. When you come with good inten-
tions, they want you to be there,” Stibbe says. “I would exaggerate and say that they don’t mind if you make a profit, their intentions are good and you care about what’s happening to them, to their country, their land, their education, their environment. And they allow you to do more. If you don’t come in and try to sell to them, you help them to have a better life. That’s our experience.” The power that comes with being a significant financial investor allows the company to advocate for citizens to their own governments, particularly in remote or underdeveloped areas, Stibbe says. “Before we come in with our investment, we go to the government and say: ‘We’re willing to invest in this remote area, but before we commit, you must do A, B and C’. That
Vital Capital has invested in the Kora project in the new centrality of Lossambo, Huambo Province.
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way, the population love it because otherwise no one would care about them. We insist. We say that we will put the investment there, but we need you to take care of the water supply to the villages. We need you to make sure that they have good electric supply.” The approach seems to be catching on. Stibbe presented his philosophy to African leaders at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama in 2013, and since then has been invited to Malawi, Mozambique, Djibouti, Gabon, Rwanda and Côte d’Ivoire to talk about projects. Construction has already begun on a project in Ghana. “In October, I met the head of the national pension fund of Nigeria,” he says. “They said ‘we need 50m houses’. That will take us a few lifetimes to build!” n
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Cities can overcome legacy of conflict More than half the world’s population already live in cities and by 2030, 60% will have been urbanised. But cities can be both sources of violent social conflict, or they can be peace-builders. Which way a city will go will depend on they are managed and how equitable they become. By Dr Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director, UN-Habitat.
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ore than 1.5bn people live in countries affected by violent conflict and where maintaining the monopoly on the use of force, delivering basic services and sustaining political legitimacy are daily challenges. The majority of the world’s poor will live in such contexts by 2030. The persistence or recurrence of fragility and conflict is strongly correlated with poverty, inequality, and exclusion. A growing evidence base suggests that extreme poverty is not receding in those places affected by conflict and weak state legitimacy and poorly performing public sector institutions: roughly 400m of the very poorest currently live in countries affected by these characteristics – a number that has remained essentially unchanged since 1990. Concurrently, countries affected by conflict are undergoing rapid transformation due to a breakneck pace of urbanisation. More than half of the world’s population already
lives in cities and towns, and by 2030, 60% will be urbanised, concentrated in developing countries. Conflict-affected countries have historically presented very low rates of urbanisation: in 2000, only 33% of the population in such countries lived in cities. Yet that figure will soar to 56% by 2050 and countries such as Afghanistan, Mali, and Yemen rank among the world’s fastest urbanisers. Cities growing at such rates experience extraordinary pressures on basic services, infrastructure, urban economies and social cohesion, as well as the capacity of public institutions to respond to popular demands. The largely informal character of urban growth in fragile countries means that new urban citizens also tend to become slum dwellers – who already number one billion globally. In times of conflict, cities and towns often serve as safe havens for those escaping unrest. For example, this was the case in Angola where a massive rural-urban exodus was experienced during the civil wars. In particular, the population of Luanda increased tenfold from 1974 to today, in part due to growth driven by conflict. Much of this has resulted in the proliferation of the Musseques (informal/slum areas), which today constitute the majority of the population of Luanda, with all the related difficult living conditions.
Other important secondary cities in Angola have borne the impacts of similar migration processes. In 2014, the country is already 62% urban, partly as a consequence of these dynamics, among others. Furthermore, as material and symbolic assets, cities are central sites of armed contestation in interstate and civil wars, as recently demonstrated in the Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya and Syria. With multiple identities tending to converge in cities, they are also more likely to become the locus of identity-based conflicts: cities divided by ethno-national violence, such as Belfast, Kaduna or Sarajevo, provide particular challenges as spatial segregation breaks down the fabric of urban life in shared public spaces. Cities as peace-builders Seen from another perspective, cities are a unique context and arena of peace-building. The city as a lived space provides opportunities for both coexistence and contestation. Many immediate and existential foundations of intergroup conflict lie in daily urban life, and it is at this micro level that antagonisms can be most directly influenced by interventions aimed at their amelioration. Efforts to build peace cannot be disconnected from urban dynamics and the power structures underpinning them. The city is a site where
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difference can be negotiated and transcended, power diffused and shared identities developed. Cities provide opportunities for people to coalesce around interests with unifying and constructive potential, including the pursuit of urban public goods that reduce the negative externalities of urban life, such as violence and spatial exclusion. The current international peace and security context points to a growing role for local governance arrangements, and the value of the urban as a prism through which to view and understand peace-building processes localised in the city space. Strong and inclusive local governments are also increasingly seen as essential building blocks of the peace-building in postconflict environments. Four key factors Significantly, there appears to be an â&#x20AC;&#x153;urban advantageâ&#x20AC;? in advancing peace-building processes at city level. This is rooted in, and shaped by, four key factors.
First, in terms of scale, it is easier and cheaper to effectively deliver services to a densely concentrated urban population than a widely dispersed rural population. Second, the proximity of the local government to its citizens renders it more sensitive to signals of stress and unrest, and exposes local government to a level of scrutiny that promotes responsiveness and accountability. Third, the proximity of citizens to one another renders coordination of interests easier, creates space for mobilisation, and makes the benefits of mutual cooperation more discernible, in an urban context. Compact size makes the creation of mechanisms to promote collective action and institutionalise negotiation easier than at national level. And fourth, there is ample scope to raise revenues locally in urban areas, which is crucial to expanding provision of public goods. The more governments depend on revenues generated locally, the greater their
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Above: Residents of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, where a housing project was launched on World Habitat Day.
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motivation to enhance services and infrastructure, grow economic activity and demonstrate accountability. The role of cities and human settlements in conflict management is clearly demonstrated by the work of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the UN agency mandated to advance sustainable cities and human settlements, which has vast experience in supporting local governments in conflict-affected countries with visible results. For instance, in Hargeisa, Somaliland, UN-Habitat worked to strengthen the tax base through the mapping of all households and businesses in the city thereby enhancing revenue generation for basic service provision as well as local government legitimacy and accountability. In Afghanistan, where municipal governments are non-elected and exceedingly weak, UN-Habitat developed Community Development Councils to enhance participation in slum upgrading processes, and coordination of municipal government to improve access to services, ultimately strengthening social cohesion. In the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN-Habitat introduced a range of communitybased land-dispute resolutions mechanisms in and around Goma, an area where contestation over land was a driver of conflict. As such, cities and human settlements offer unparalleled opportunities for overcoming the legacy of conflict. Urbanisation allows the inclusion of greater numbers of people in the benefits of good governance and prosperity: cities hold out the possibility of reliable access to services and venues for democratic citizenship, and urban economies raise the living standards of hundreds of millions of people. As more and more people live in cities in fragile countries, prospects for improving the lives of the poorest and the most conflict-prone in these countries will depend on the promotion of equitable, sustainable urbanisation, initiated by people and urban communities in conjunction with local governments, within a multi-level governance framework. n
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Africa’s rich architectural heritage has been overwhelmed by alien concepts which arrived in the wake of colonialism. But now, as Africa recommences its urban development, the African architect can come into his or her own. By Tokunbo Omisore, RIBA, FNIA, President, Africa Union of Architects.
Plan with the people, not for the people
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frica, the cradle of civilisation, has evolved over thousands of years and has had a profound influence over other civilisations – and has itself been subjected to enormous influences from outside the continent. Architecture, from the astonishingly simple yet highly efficient designs of the typical African hut with a roof made from thatch, to the elaborate structures found in ancient Sudan, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Southern Africa, Ethiopia and the continental coastlines, has always been central to the social structures of the continent. African architectural talent is still alive and well on the continent. For example, an outstanding ambassador for this vision is Francis Kere from Burkina Faso. However, the prevailing architectural trend is what we have inherited following the long history of colonialism. Our cities and towns are modelled after European concepts and it comes as no surprise that they often don’t work. Quite
clearly, what we need now are African architectural solutions to African problems. Africa has the potential to reclaim its place among the advanced societies of the world in the realm of ideas. What Africa has failed to do is to encourage and promote research and development in the architectural sector. In addition, there is a mistaken belief that living in, and owning, structures and buildings that are replicas of those in the ‘developed nations’ indicates being literate and exposed to these much-sought-after developed societies. Worse, this concept, adopted by most African societies over the last 60 to 100 years or more, indicated that whatever is not from the developed nations connotes ‘not civilised’. If R&D in architecture and other construction disciplines is encouraged, developed and shared among practitioners, the dependence and craving for objects and ideas from outside the continent will disappear and we will be able to feel most at home in environments and structures that work for modern Africa.
‘Africa should promote and market the use of local materials to achieve the transformation it requires’
As an example of this ‘my neighbour’s grass is greener’ tendency, to date, the African built environment remains one that has refused to appreciate and integrate local materials in the building industry. In an attempt to correct this, a Made In Africa Continued Professional Development (CPD) programme on building materials, was held last year in Tangier, Morocco. What emerged was that there was urgent need to promote and market the use of local materials, and have industrialists review research on the same to achieve the transformation Africa dearly requires. As l often say, the world has had no problem in identifying the unique features of African clothing, food or dance; however, we have neglected our traditional architecture. If we had been allowed to do so, our thatched-roofed mud houses would have evolved and improved with better technology over the years (as similar structures have done elsewhere) and today would have provided affordable and abundant shelter for all in Africa. Preserving African heritage The Africa Union of Architects (AUA), inaugurated in 1981, today has 40 member countries representing the African community of architects whose aim is to promote, among others, an awareness and preservation of the African architectural heritage. The AUA believes Africa must now
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wake up to help protect our African heritage and our different cultural values. Over the years, the AUA has continuously tried to fill the huge gap in translating the rich African culture and tradition into the structures which our societies are built upon. It is time to transcend Westernisation and create a foundation where architecture becomes a solution to the numerous problems facing the structural development of Africa. To achieve this, the Africa Union of Architects commenced capacity-building collaborations with other regional bodies, and other organisations, notably UNHabitat, when the AUA became a lead partner of the World Urban Campaign on 5th September 2012 in Naples, Italy. In order to ensure that African societies are transformed, providing better lives and better cities, we became the ‘African City Changers’. The key however, involves identification of social problems confronting the continent
Top: Plastic bottles house by Nigeria-based NGO DARE. Below: Dano School, Burkina Faso, by architect Francis Kere.
and blending the influence of the numerous cultures and traditions to create solutions to African challenges in a way which also showcases African art and ingenuity. African architects are also encouraged to look for ways and means to enhance the quality of informal settlements of their cities rather than destroying them. Improving the lives of the people involves taking their cultural values into consideration. I am pleased to note that Angola is very engaged in the cultural aspect of building as it expands its enormous public housing programme. The continent’s potential remains enormous and promising, and since it is still to attain its full potential in development, there is room for Africa’s innovative architecture that would influence not just Africa but the world. African architects have a huge role to play in the preservation of culture and tradition as buildings become monuments which remain time-bound evidence of the successful transition of history from one generation to another. It is the responsibility of modern African architects to research into ways of preserving the various ethno-traditional architectural styles and devise materials and means of sustaining them – otherwise the originality of the art in African architecture would be lost with time. Poverty has been a major challenge in Africa and, as a result, many cannot afford to provide the basic amenity of shelter for their families due to the cost of erecting such structures and maintaining them, partly because architectural designs modelled for housing the common man have failed. Some of the designs also cannot cope with the environment wherein the structures were built. This contributes, amongst numerous other factors, to increasing the cost of living or rendering many homeless. Despite the availability of architects who are capable and able to do a good job, affordability remains a valid challenge for many.
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Architecture should not be undermined in the quest of trying to squeeze more from the building budgets; in fact, impeccable design that fits its environment perfectly increases the resale value of buildings. This eventually translates into attracting more investors who would be looking out to set up businesses and buildings that suit their purposes. For example, the hospitality industry, the backbone of success in African tourism, has huge potential in designing structures that reflect the best the continent has to offer and which blend perfectly with the environment. The Serena Game lodges, particularly in Tanzania, are a case in point. Africa remains one of the preferred choices as an ecotourist destination all over the world and genuine African architecture would enhance its appeal. Another fast-growing business concern that African architects have contributed immensely to is in the design and development of shopping malls. It is a fast-growing industry in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, to mention but a few. These malls have created tremendous economic opportunities: small and medium enterprises can easily reach their numerous customers; hundreds of thousands of job opportunities are created for Africans; and, most importantly, this has also helped to put African societies almost at par with developed nations of the world in relation to having a good shopping experience. To date, the African built environment remains one that has refused to appreciate and integrate local materials in the building industry. The field of architecture is constantly undergoing transition and Africa has a huge potential to be the pacesetter in the planning and design of the world’s greenfield sites. Every individual in the field has a role to play in the develop-ment of Africa and this is solely dependent on the creative input into the environment and the value our creativity adds to the African society. n
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Why maintenance is vital Angola has embarked on perhaps the largest and most comprehensive public housing programme in Africa today. Hundreds of thousands of new apartment blocks and houses have been constructed and look pristine. The question is: how will they look a few years down the road? Engineer António F. Venâncio discusses the importance of maintenance.
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he speed and scale of the rise of the new centralities, such as Kilamba outside Luanda, and in other cities, sometimes seems almost like a dream. The extraordinary growth of these new, self-contained cities with their thousands of apartments and houses is indeed marvellous to behold. There is no doubt that almost every ordinary Angolan citizen dreams of being able to move into one of these beautifully designed and superbly finished housing units sometime in the near future. But, as an engineer, I am concerned about the sustainability of these public projects. What will these new cities look like 10 years from today? Will they be as shining bright, clean and functional as they are today or will they deteriorate into squalid sink-estates as many such ambitious projects have done in other parts of the developing world? But even the developed world has had its fair share of public housing projects that have failed spectacularly – the low-cost tower blocks in
London and Paris are a classic example and large segments have had to be pulled down. From the construction industry ‘pathologist’s’ perspective, a construction is deemed to have reached its final stages of useful life when it is no longer occupied (or indeed capable of being occupied); there is no activity in and around it; it is of no effective use; or if the cost of major rehabilitation involves serious costs. Buildings in such conditions represent clear danger to anyone either attempting to occupy them or to those near and around them. It is still possible in some cases, to apply a variety of remedial interventions but the cost factors can be prohibitive. In the final analyses, there is often no option but to demolish the structures. But of course this need not have to be the case. The name we give to the activity that involves timely interventions to detect and repair flaws and to attempt to totally remove the causes of deterioration is ‘maintenance’. The poor condition of structures outlined above, which engineers fear so much and which takes up a great deal of their focus in finding solutions, are generally an indication of nonexistent, poor or incorrect maintenance. Generally speaking, countries which are less financially powerful and which have a lack of the requisite human resources, or those with wrong maintenance policies, face serious difficulties maintaining their public infrastructure. This is particularly so for urban infrastructure, because this involves
collective public ownership and has high rates of use and frequency – a characteristic of demographically dense cities. A generic way of characterising the causes of such a remarkable lack of maintenance of urban infrastructure in many affected countries has involved pointing the finger at the lack of a maintenance “culture”. Such criticisms highlight the fact that underdeveloped countries suffer greatly from this cultural absence of a spirit of preservation and conservation. This is often why the physical assets they have built, generally speaking, only focus on the date of construction; there is a false belief that the asset will maintain an uninterrupted service and therefore they are seeking in vain for durability with no maintenance costs. It is not unfair to state that public decision-makers are usually completely satisfied after they cut the ribbons to inaugurate new public works at a pompous ceremonies; quite often they abandon the properties without any protection against the natural actions of the weather or other factors resulting from their function and use, in serving the purposes for which they were constructed. Economic roots What I can very readily conclude is that the thinking, in many countries, behind the belief that there is no need for preventive maintenance, has economic roots. Those countries where one can observe a lack of institutionalised interest in the maintenance and conservation of their urban infra-
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Above: Urban centres like Lagos need planning for transport infrastructure.
structure, are usually under heavy pressures from tight budgets where scarce resources are required to meet the most basic needs of their populations. Governments in such cases have to usually resort to belt-tightening financial measures and cuts in expenditure. Among the constant victims of these budgetary cuts are costs relating to maintenance and conservation. Contrary to what one might imagine, relegating such costs to the background, or even banning such maintenance costs from their annual accounts, is a very frequent phenomenon in emerging economies or economically constrained countries. Population increases, which are unstoppable, and the excessive
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number of citizens residing in urban areas, generate conflicts of interest. This, in most cases, is responsible for the negative trend regarding the weak levels of maintenance and conservation. Governments are often forced to make difficult choices between using available funds to construct new units to respond to social demands and allocating funds for the maintenance and conservation of the existing construction. These issues are genuinely difficult to resolve. At first glance it would seem more worthy to allocate national funds to help people in severe housing need by constructing new infrastructure than trying to find a financial balance between construction and conservation.
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On average, the annual costs for conservation and maintenance are around 5% of the value of each building already standing. There are no easy solutions and national and local governments have to make the hard choices on what to prioritise. There is no doubt, as examples from around the world show, that well-maintained properties can remain more or less pristine for decades, serving a very succession of generations. Such properties also almost invariably gain in value, sometimes to factors well above 500%, as we have seen in some major capitals, including Luanda, and become thriving economic centres, thereby creating wealth and jobs. Squaring this circle, especially as the urban
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drift gathers momentum and is unstoppable, requires intelligent and flexible thinking as well as synergies with social and economic groups, and partnerships with both the private sector as well as other countries which have succeeded in creating model social housing. Singapore, for example, has transformed what was probably the worst slum for its size on the island nation into one of the best social housing schemes in the world. Maintenance is built into the original planning of each project and, in some of the more modern structures, maintenance teams are alerted to faults through computers and are required to put things right immediately – before a relatively small problem, such as a leaking water pipe, becomes a major catastrophe involving flooded floors and destroyed electricals. The private sector, in Angola as well as in other developing countries, now factors in service and maintenance charges from the outset and has strict rules on the care of its properties. Similar charges are often also levied on social housing but one must be careful not to place the cost
‘The urban drift requires intelligent and flexible thinking, synergies with social and economic groups, and partnerships with the private sector’ of renting such properties beyond the reach of the very people for whom the schemes were designed. Danger signals From an engineering point of view, all instances that point to neglected maintenance, either as a result of financial constraint or cultural ‘blindness’ are danger signals that have to be addressed. Engineers also understand the stresses and strains on structures over time and use, the lack of stability that may arise in
Above: Singapore is a model of what a good social housing scheme can achieve.
some areas, the condition of roofs, walls, façades, the internal and external wiring and plumbing, the road and other surrounding infrastructure. It is vital that any sign of disrepair is attended to at once – before the small hole in the road turns into a broken highway. That said, it is also the responsibility of the original contractors to make sure that the properties they hand over to be sold or rented to citizens and paid for from the national purse, are in the best condition possible. Any faults at this stage have to be rectified by the contractors. From an engineering point of view, one can understand the wear on structural elements of a given construction; loss of stability, removing the planned functionality; the abandoned holes in paved roads that rapidly deteriorate the highway; progressive cracking due to tangential and normal requests that arise with the passage of time in façade, walls, roofs or other structural support without timely treatment – and all those aspects which could be advisable and programmable – can lead to constructions with a premature state of deterioration, which, if left uncontrolled, will lead to their collapse. These would then lose all their usefulness, thus compromising the desired economic viability, that on a certain day gave rise to the decision leading to their construction, to serve the citizen, and, in general, society as a whole. It is in this way that Angola has scheduled a conservation and maintenance programme for urban infrastructure, including, and not limited to, road infrastructure, which will start to be implemented in a far more organised manner than previously, now that 12 years have passed since peace was definitely established. Keeping all this in mind, it is very encouraging that the new ‘centralities’, such as Kilamba, have gone the extra mile and have permanent training facilities, in situ, for such skills as plumbing, electricals, gardening, plastering and other disciplines that are needed by maintenance crews. This approach serves several purposes – it teaches valuable skills, it provides jobs and it helps to maintain the newly built cities in their pristine condition. n
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5th Africa Capital Markets (ACM) Summit 16th April 2015, Washington DC, USA Held during the World Bank & IMF meetings, the 5th ACM Summit will appraise Africa’s capital markets, with a focus on mobilising domestic and international capital towards infrastructure investment. Bringing together African policy makers as well as international financiers, the Summit will showcase investment opportunities and provide a forum for discussing the latest capital market developments in Africa.
9th African Banker Awards 27th May 2015, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
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The most prestigious event in Africa’s banking and finance sector, the African Banker Awards, is held under the patronage of the African Development Bank. The 9th edition of the awards will take place during the AfDB’s annual meeting.
7th African Business Awards 20th September 2015, New York, USA Designed to celebrate excellence in African business, the African Business Awards gala cocktail will be held during the UN’s General Assembly and in conjunction with the African Leadership Forum and the UN Private Sector Forum.
2nd African Leadership Forum (ALF) 21st September 2015, New York, USA The 2nd ALF will discuss the role of leadership in driving transformative growth and development in Africa. It will be held in conjunction with the African Business Awards and the UN Private Sector Forum.
For more information please contact us at: register@ic-events.net or +44 (0) 20 7841 3210 www.ic-events.net
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Economic dimension of urban policy Economic policy in most of Africa needs a robust spatial dimension and urban policy needs an equally strong economic framework since the two are interlinked and complementary. Well-planned cities can usher in the transformative industrialisation element that the continent now aspires to. By Professor Ivan Turok, Acting Executive Director, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa.
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wo recent experiences highlight Africa’s vulnerabilities if its cities continue to be neglected. The exponential growth of the Ebola epidemic within the overcrowded slums of Monrovia (Liberia) and Freetown (Sierra Leone) illustrates the consequences of unplanned urbanisation for the rapid spread of infectious diseases. This tragic outbreak would have been contained far more easily and without nearly as much human suffering and loss of life if there had been proper sanitation, fresh water, decent housing and responsive institutions governing the region’s cities and towns. The second experience surrounds the damaging impact of the collapse in the global oil price on the economies of countries such as Nigeria, Angola and Gabon in recent months. Their governments are being forced to make drastic cuts to essential
public services because of their dependence on tax revenues from oil exports. If their cities functioned more efficiently and their infrastructure was more robust, they would serve as platforms to enable economic diversification and industrialisation. (Angola has indeed embarked on a giant new urbanisation programme designed with just this in mind). Overshadowing both episodes is the prediction that Africa’s urban population will double in size over the next 20 years to reach over 750m. The continent is still only 40% urbanised and clearly has a long way to go. The inevitability of the large-scale urban growth still to come presents a unique opportunity to create more productive, inclusive and safer cities by being better prepared than the first time round, and anticipating the scale of growth to come. It means installing appropriate infrastructure that will help to harness the potential of the second wave, and not reproducing the status quo. Attempting to retrofit highly congested urban areas and upgrade densely packed informal settlements is much more complicated and costly once the basic spatial patterns are established and communities are firmly entrenched in place. Warnings about the dangers and
threats of rapid, uncontrolled urbanisation have been repeated over and over again for years. National governments have been continually alerted to the risks of urban hardship and squalor, social disorder and environmental disasters. However, these alarm bells have generally failed to persuade many senior politicians to take the plight of their cities more seriously by investing in effective urban policies. As a result, African cities are typically inefficient and inequitable, with most people living in hazardous conditions without basic services. The economic benefits of urbanisation Others, however, have heeded the warning and are now engaged in a race against time to create cities fit for the 21st century and Africa’s needs. A more persuasive argument is that countries can derive substantial developmental benefits from better-planned and managed urban growth. The economic case for national urban policy is that there are significant gains for productivity, job creation and living standards from the geographical concentration of population and business activity. Proximity reduces transaction and transport costs, and fosters
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‘Africa’s cities could play a big part in helping to broaden and deepen the continent’s economic trajectory’
Left: The consumerism of the growing middle class is conspicuous in the rise of shopping malls.
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entrepreneurial dynamism and ingenuity. It also enables more intense trading between enterprises, and engenders stronger collaboration and mutual learning. Put simply, the physical concentration of people, firms, infrastructure and institutions in one place means that resources of all kinds are used more efficiently and creatively, thereby saving costs and promoting innovation. This enables economies to advance over time from primary production to secondary and tertiary industries. Africa’s cities could play a big part in helping to broaden and deepen the continent’s economic trajectory. They could ensure that its diminishing stock of natural resources is used more productively and in ways that will help to sustain economic growth into the future. The experience of many Asian countries in recent years has provided a great deal of supporting evidence and credibility to reinforce these arguments. Rapid urbanisation in Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines has been accompanied by accelerated economic growth and all-round development. China is the outstanding example, having experienced a remarkable nine-fold increase in income per capita since the mid-1980s, on the back of the rate of urbanisation being doubled. Urbanisation has clearly been a transformative force for higher productivity, entrepreneurial dynamism and rising prosperity. Africa’s experience has been much more mixed. The connections between economic development and urbanisation seem to be weaker than elsewhere. Prosperity seems to have bypassed rather than benefited many cities because growth has been driven by the extraction of natural resources and not by broad-based industrialisation. Some countries conform to the international pattern, but many others do not. It appears that the benefits of physical proximity and concentration are not automatic or inevitable. The advantages of urbanisation have been undermined by congestion, insecure infrastructure, and rising labour and property costs.
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These afflictions reduce the attractiveness of cities for business investment and weaken economic performance. A great deal appears to hinge on the physical environment in which urban growth occurs. This is determined by whether public investment is channelled into improving how cities function by creating an efficient and compact urban form. It is vital that governments recycle the surpluses and taxes generated from commodity exports and reinvest them in improved power supplies, storm-water systems, sanitation networks and other urban facilities. Africa’s rising middle class and consumption Some external observers suggest that Africa can short-circuit industrialisation by unleashing middle-class consumerism. The scenario being promoted by global management consultants maintains that the emergence of an African middle class can drive economic growth through its potent demand for consumer goods and services. They point to visible symbols of prosperity in African cities in the form of conspicuous new shopping malls, smart hotels, branches of international banks and global fastfood outlets. It is clear that there has been an increase in foreign investment in sectors such as the retailing of food and clothing; banking and insurance services; leisure, tourism and hospitality; commercial property and up-market house-building; and transport and pharmaceuticals. This appears to be linked to international recognition of the continent’s growing urban population at a time when consumer markets in many other parts of the world have been stagnant. However, it is vital to ask whether the rising middle class in African cities constitutes a solid foundation for growth and development into the future. Is there sufficient value addition and tradable content being undertaken in these activities to provide for lasting growth in jobs and incomes? Or is this phenomenon largely founded upon imported consumer goods paid for by mineral
‘Critical decisions taken by governments over the next few years on the location of infrastructure will lock in particular growth trajectories for decades to come’ exports? And is the urban middle class really significant in economic terms, or does it remain very small and insubstantial? Casual observation suggests that suburban lifestyles characterised by high levels of material consumption are confined to a tiny minority of the population. Therefore it would appear to be a mistake for economic strategies to favour consumer-driven growth and retail trade, rather than investment in the production of value added goods and services (including import-substituting consumer products), and higher personal savings rather than spending. In addition, for Africa’s youthful population to yield a demographic
Above: The need for improved transportation infrastructure goes hand in hand with urbanisation.
dividend and spur lasting economic growth, there need to be considerably more opportunities for people to enhance their skills and capabilities, to find meaningful and rewarding work, and to start up and grow their own enterprises. A sizeable middle class cannot emerge and survive in isolation of a stronger real economy. Therefore African cities need to become more than centres of luxury consumption and public administration. They need to make their own products and produce more of what they consume in order to retain local spending power and increase household incomes. Diversification means developing upstream and downstream activities such as refining, processing, beneficiation and supplying inputs to mining and manufacturing. Cities are the natural place to achieve economies of scale, promote specialisation, and build durable connections across the economy. Building urban economies also involves establishing an efficient construction industry and a cohort of dynamic enterprises that can produce decent affordable housing for people on low incomes. Over time, shacks need to be replaced by structures that will raise living standards and help people to become more productive. Mediumdensity, multi-storey buildings are much more effective than singlestorey structures at ensuring that public transport can be viable and that access to jobs and amenities is convenient. Critical decisions taken by governments over the next few years on the location of infrastructure will lock in particular growth trajectories for decades to come. Major investments in transport, energy, water, sanitation and telecommunications could ensure a positive relationship between urbanisation and development, or cause Africa’s urban problems to become overwhelming. Overall economic policy in Africa needs a stronger spatial dimension, and urban policy needs an economic dimension. The two policy agendas need to be brought together more explicitly because they are patently complementary. n
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Cities have created the enormous leap of innovation and wealth that we see around the world today but functional cities themselves need to be created in the first instance. What is the spark that leads to wholesale transformation? By K.Y. Amoako, President, African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET).
Cities and Economic Transformation
A
fter decades of largely failed economic plans – which in most cases were little more than fire-fighting exercises – it is very encouraging that the continent is rapidly embracing a paradigm shift to ‘economic transformation’ as the way forward. This means an end to the ‘wishing for the best’ mind-set of the past and demands real planning that starts with the end result in mind, and works out the logical steps that need to be taken to achieve this end. This is a results-oriented approach. We, at ACET, have always argued for ‘Growth with Depth’, where DEPTH stands for Diversified production; Export competitiveness; Productivity increases across the board; Technology upgrading and, finally, Human wellbeing, including higher incomes and better jobs. Cities can deliver this depth. They have done so throughout the centuries and around the world, and they are without a doubt the main sources of organic growth even on a continent where agriculture still plays such a dominant economic role. The question is: Are African cities, in their current state, as effective
as they can be as organs of economic growth? The answer, quite clearly, is no. The vast majority of them punch well below their respective weights in terms of income generation and, with a few exceptions, fail miserably in human wellbeing. If anything, most of our cities do the opposite and create vast rancid pools of human misery. But history tells us that this situation is neither unique nor confined to Africa. Virtually all cities (except for the few ‘artificially created’ ones such as Brasília or Jayaputra) were once revolting slums where the majority squeezed together while the rich and powerful built little islands of affluence. Yet out of this squalor and chaos, great, powerful and immensely wealthy cities arose – London, New York, Paris, Moscow, just to mention the most familiar. But, in each case, the transformation did not happen without concerted effort, or as an indirect result of some other development. It has always required, first, an acceptance that the status quo was not acceptable any more and, second, a determination to change. This simple formula has achieved quite extraordinary results in the past and continues to in emerging Asia today. But changing the status quo requires both a long-term view as well as a roadmap of how to get there. We call that roadmap the Transformation Agenda. Windfall of ‘special circumstances’ It is therefore tremendously encouraging to witness Angola, emerging as it is from a long period of war and destruction, not only determined to change the status quo but acting with a single-minded determination. It has
ridden the windfall of ‘special circumstances’– its oil revenues – to start sweeping out those ugly and counterproductive parts of its heritage to build shining new cities in their place. Angola’s success in creating hundreds of thousands of new homes by employing several innovative and ingenious financing structures for its citizens, and making these available at highly subsidised rates, will breathe new confidence in other city planners elsewhere in the continent. Angola has proved it can be done. Of course this is just the start of another new phase. The very act of moving from the rural areas to the cities is in itself transformative, as subsistence living gives way to specialisation, no matter now basic. And this is the building block of an economic order that can continue to generate economic growth for years to come. Specialisation leads to industrialisation, which gives rise to manufacturing, which both feeds and creates new markets for itself. And the cycle repeats over and over again. The ever-increasing prosperity, and concomitant improvements in human wellbeing we have seen elsewhere, are all founded on these very same building blocks. But, just as careful planning and bold execution are essential in creating these new cities for everincreasing urban populations, the potential for economic transformation they carry with them can only be fully realised by equally careful and knowledgeable planning and equally bold execution. The key, however, is to muster the determination to change the status quo, and at that point, nothing is impossible. n
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Make us dream By Omar Ben Yedder, Group Publisher.
have now Central Park, one of the most famous green spaces in the world. Planners and policy makers have a huge responsibility to make our cities both liveable and cohesive. What I’m asking is for them to also make us dream.
“Humanity needs dreams to endure misery, even if just for an instant.” Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect (1907–2012)
O
ver the 100 pages of this magazine, we have put forward the case of why cities matter. Great cities ultimately mean prosperity. Cities such as New York and London are economic powerhouses and engines of growth. The GDP of New York is in excess of $1 trillion. Areas such as Silicon Valley have become an oasis of creativity. They all have one thing in common: proper planning. As much as I am a proponent of free market and minimum intervention, successful cities have come about through strategic planning and lofty visions. Done well, there is no reason why our cities cannot compete globally and match the best out there. Our editor, in his introduction, put forward the critical role planners have to play. We are endowed with so much, but let us not forget that with great power comes great responsibility. Manhattan is a prime example. Downtown Manhattan was where all the activity took place in the early 19th century, but there was no structure to the way the city functioned. Seizing the opportunity and realising the potential, planners got together and decided to organise the city following a grid system, which if you look at a map is what you have from the 10th street up. A few years later, seeing a city dominated by concrete the planners decided to put a park in the middle of Manhattan. You
Harmony from chaos Strong leadership has shown what’s possible and that we can transform our cities. Those in Africa are often too disorderly, unsafe and lacking in green spaces. Governor Babatunde Fashola has transformed Lagos, adding order, discipline and creating space for the ordinary citizen. Kigali in Rwanda is a prime example of order and urban growth in harmony with the natural beauty the city has to offer. I hope today’s planners and decision makers will be bold enough to dream. They have a chance not only to do the practical but to do be creative and to be bold. Putting structures in place is the easy bit. Creating harmony from chaos is what we need from them. I hope those in positions of power will use it wisely. Let us not forget the arts – often an afterthought – let us not forget sports when we dream up our cities, let us not forget music and culture, which have so much to offer to make a city great. Let us think like a child and see what he would want: where would he want to live and grow? In Brazil, the great Oscar Niemeyer often used to get criticised for his expensive vanity projects but his buildings were not a contribution to the rich but to all. In that sense, it is the most democratic thing you can give. He is right in saying that the great thing about architecture is to start from the premise that it can make life better. The Great Renaissance statue in Dakar has come under criticism but this other ‘vanity project’ is a landmark for all in Dakar, and whether you love it or hate it, landmarks are needed to give a city an identity. We have huge challenges as we dream our future cities. In so many ways we are fortunate in that we can learn from the best as well as from the worst and technology and innovations mean that nothing is impossible. We need to cater for many urgent needs. But I hope that like our ancestors we will do so in harmony with nature and the arts, from which we need to draw our inspiration. Be practical, pragmatic and realistic, yes. But at the same time make us dream. We all need some fantasy to live better. n
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www.pwc.com/ao
How do you know you’re doing a good investment?* Capital Projects and Infrastructure
The PwC Capital Projects and Infrastructure team is your ideal partner for projects in this sector. It has vast experience from across Africa, providing advice and support to its clients at every stage of their projects, from inception to operation and maintenance.
A equipa da PwC, especializada em investimentos e infra-estruturas, é a parceira ideal para projectos neste sector. Tem uma vasta experiência em vários países de África, nos quais presta serviços de assessoria e suporte a diferentes clientes em todas as etapas dos seus projectos, desde a concepção até à execução e manutenção.
L’équipe PwC, spécialiste en financement de projets et infrastructures est le partenaire idéal pour vos missions dans ce secteur. PwC a une vaste expérience en pays africains, avec une offre de services multidisciplinaires pour accompagner toutes les étapes du processus, de la conception à l’exécution et manutention.
How can we help: • strategy; • planning; • funding; • procurement; • project management; • risk assurance & governance; • optimisation.
Como podemos ajudar: • estratégia; • planeamento; • funding; • procurement; • gestão de projectos; • auditoria & governance; • optimização.
Nos expertises: • stratégie; • planning; • financement • approvisionnement; • coordination et gestion du processus; • audit & governance; • optimisation.
Contacts / Contactos / Contacts: * Como sabe que está a fazer um bom investimento? Comment savez-vous que vous faites un bon investissement?
Pedro Calixto PwC Angola Senior Partner +244 227 286 109 pedro.calixto@ao.pwc.com
Carlos Moutinho PwC Angola Advisory Lead Partner +244 924 811 381 carlos.moutinho@ao.pwc.com
© PwC Angola 2015. All rights reserved. In this document “PwC” refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers (Angola) which is a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, each member firm of which is a separate legal entity.
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